The Last Mile

Jamis is up on the wrong side of the north sixty        
the high exposed end  
heading in     
facing into the sun's glare                 
too far still for me to call out.        
A mile as a crow would fly        
one point eight as the arc of a bullet        
and as a man would walk        
it might just be infinite.        
         
Memories of a woman are unreliable.          
They glow in a perfume of soft edges and white lies.        
When the thoughts go back looking for hard truths        
they're deflected.        
The picture comes up empty        
and the only proof of that treasured past        
still acceptable to the haunted mind is the thought that just once        
it needs to set eyes upon her again.        
         
The poor light of selective hindsight    
brings the guilty back        
to the scenes of their crimes,        
draws a man full-circle around    
toward what he'd left for good reason.       
         
This is the light that conspires with mist  
kicked-up by the cold        
on any one of the too many nights  
lost in the short season        
watching from the foothills        
from the unmowed sides of hayfields.        
The haze-light blunts the edges of even the most violent rooms        
in a shroud of nostalgia.        
         
A moving shape is plain upon the upper pasture.        
         
The fields will slope off to sycamore.        
There will be a river.        
There will be only one best place        
to try to cross        
to try to return.