It can take almost two years

To travel around the world

By sailboat.
I imagine the sun looks like a

Blood orange

The skin peeled off by the horizon

As it sinks underneath the

Edge of the world

 

There are over 355 miles of

Trails in the Rocky Mountains

Each one finds a home in my

Veins

Like the mountains stand on the curve

Of my own backbone

The sun looks like a backyard

Of blood orange trees

Ready for the picking

 

After you have traveled the world

In your sailboat for one

More than once or twice

I will be planted in the mountain cliff

Like a Colorado wildflower
My backyard Rockies more like a

Field of dreams

With their rinds peeled off

So sweet to the taste

My hands have never longed

For sea salt like yours have.

 

You had yet to set sail on your

Boat of singularity

You asked me

Where I’ll be in ten years

With tomorrow in my eyes
I said

Happy.

 

I’ll have a happiness made of finger paintings

Eyes like the reservoir

And a smile full of safety nets

For days I might

Avalanche

With arms like roots to an infallible

Family tree

My happiness, I said

Will have someone to call daddy

Someone who looks at me

Like the first time he saw the

Mountains

Didn’t know something could be

So expansive

Like he’d buried his heart at the

Summit of a giant

And didn’t realize it always belonged there

 

Our happiness, I said

Will have a name

Whether son or daughter, it won’t matter

Our happiness will look

Like blue skies you can almost

See through

And clouds you can actually

Climb onto

And a blood orange rising

From his or her eyes

My heart has 300 miles

Of blood orange trees for the taking.

 

You told me your happiness looks like

The horizon

Melting into the ocean where you think

You may finally reach

The sweet taste of someone’s hands

Through the commotion

Of so many rip tide promises
I got caught in one once

You slid from my fingers like

Sea water

A tide pool of mixes emotions

With the regret that I

Am more air balloon than sail boat

Knowing you would rather float

That fly
You found beauty in an ocean

Where the waves came crashing like

Danger sign lies

Lost yourself in the confusion

And thought it was love

 

My happiness, I said

Will taste like mountain air

Thin but full of, I love you’s

Our skin will never be bare

Of cherry bomb safety and wildfire

Kisses

His arms will never feel like drowning

But like protection

 

You asked me once

Where I’ll be in ten years’ time
I said

Building a life with someone else

 

My happiness will not look

Like your smile

But that of someone else

With “good morning” still on his lips

It will not look like the sunset

Disappearing into your skin

But reflecting off his fingertips

It will not be yours to call child

Son or daughter,

They will call someone else will daddy

And I know you find more beauty

In the ocean than a mountain range heart

They are both so expansive

You can lose yourself

 

In ten years’ time

You may finally find the right sailboat

To call home

But know, it can still capsize

 

I will have a mountain peak

One hand on the sky

Blood oranges in my eyes

With a life you will never know

The beauty of.