Returning From the Mountains

A girl returns from the mountains

with a handful of snow. All day

I have sat in the garden, drinking tea.

I have dozed beneath oak leaves,

shivered as shadows climbed my back.

She places snow on the table where my

blue cup rests, offers a soft leather

bag filled with wind, top bound with

leather strips. She moves her tiger

body close to me, her face red and vivid,

her white breath thick as fog. When

she tosses the bag in the air, it floats

a little, like a balloon at a child’s party,

but spilling voices moaning from

a long way off, so many green teeth

hungry in early summer grass, so many

tongues: voices of sailors and sea birds

and women who combed the sky for stars.