​We drove through Yellowstone
watching Old Faithful
in ponchos, welcoming
the geyser’s predictability.
     Blood (we knew)
     is half water.
 
We drove with the radio low
listening to unfamiliar stations,
staring at bison herds
dotting the prairie
     like raisin clumps.
   
               The rain stopped.
We crossed over the Continental Divide
splitting watershed without consensus
between Pacific and Atlantic―
the indifference of geology
we call nature.

     Natural? a great caldera
of pressure built by earthquake
and fire and salt― 
               not loss
alone but loss of self.

The rain resumed. 
     Lines on the wet pavement
blurred as we drove
in the dead of night
feeling the asphalt murmur,
miles melting 
     our wafer-hope.
 
We drove on
searching ourselves
     for second opinions,
for absolution,
reaching home―
finding home
was not what we had thought.
 
A raisin is just a shriveled grape
missing its water.
     Yet small things form a wedge
as sure as any mountain peak
parting rainfall
​
     flowing
     toward different
     seas.