150.

you are telling travel stories, and I can smell meadow grass on your breath
as you talk about your itching feet, how they won't stand still for long
and I can feel mine growing restless, too

so I walk outside for once
and I make it as far as the back porch,
sitting here trying to swallow some green air, something clean
to wash the tar from my lungs.

you talk about vastness, about immensity
and I can see it in your mouth when you open wide enough,
blue mountains behind your teeth

and something cracks in me
when I listen to your wilderness songs

somehow I am nine years old again
and I am watching the sun climb a Colorado horizon
crossing my heart and hoping we never go back to Texas
and then I am nineteen, hiking through Arizona
pressing the photographs I've taken into my chest and praying
that the images will transfer, and my skin will become canyon-colored
and then I am twenty-two in New Mexico
cheeks raw from mountain sleet,
and from laughing too hard

my feet are cramping in these high heels, and I am curious
what you can see in my mouth when I open wide
whether it is all cigarette butts
and broken glass
the blood I've swallowed

or whether there is still some blue sky
in the back of my throat