Tumble through opening dawn and

We are sharing dewdrops sweet on tingling tongues
laughing apart and
pressing bodies
running sweeping meadow through halls of bramble and
great green mass of wood rising
losing us to
pulse of wind in leaves
little clawings in loam and
blood and

Moss tickling the soles of your feet and

You are prancing white fawn
splashing in sun-pools and I
chasing you bounding brook
hopping bank to rock to rock to rock
lulls babbling and pulls gurgling and

I am swimming salmon
up streaming
down wittershins whirlpooling
leaping
eating hazel nuts
skirting rapids
climbing cascades and

New light flaring drawing you edging forest fading
stepping flesh and steeping spirit from fawn and

You are emerging silver mare and

Deep cooling dark revealing me sterling light
diving from water fish and

I am landing stag dancing shadows
weaving until

Brown leaves crunching under hoof to foot at your opal glance and

I am antlered still and holly-skinned
man lifting jasper eyes painting

You iridescent silhouetting atop
expecting belly of earth
mane tossing and whinny beckoning

Countless passings-etched path and

I process
revering upwards coiling snake about treasure
rounding rising loop-head beading for you then
veering me whisking back downwards
away and again and again and

Your one exhale and my one in
longer than longing life and

I am path and you are full moon untarnished resting on the navel where
cresting setting
we end

Dusky orange welled up behind the Rocky Mountains as the setting sun poured forth light that overflowed the sky-aspiring earth. Countless individual motes of dust and droplets of water in the unusually humid Colorado air melted into a single viscous glow that rolled over the foothills and flooded the plains beneath.
The evening’s ether tide drowned the hit-and-miss collection of Cayer College’s Victorian, Neo-Classical, Modern and Post-Modern buildings and passed through the Sports Center’s inviting glass doors without troubling them to open. Vermillion washed down the broad, long hallway past the rows of trophies gleaming in their cases and lapped at the Welcome Desk where Josh watched, leaning into the light as he sat with his knobby chin resting on folded hands.

(This is the opening of my novel...)