Runoff from In Place by Michael Dickerson

It's morning in the lower west
where you retreated and seasoned in.
And summer heat is a snow slope
where you dug out a hibernation cave,
you landscaped the arid valley
with the rivers passing through,
you drove treelineward with the sunroof
open to the first rain
as birds pummeled the voices of DJs––

drops leap but not free of the stream,
and I shed layers.
The sun grazes close and
ice is linoleum in the valley.

Water magnetized water
and the town held you in your orbit
became a ceremony of trying not to go, waterborne,
on out, anonymous, common.
Leave the power lines and wires,
leave behind ditches aspiring onward.

Aspire, break free.
I was the only one going anywhere.
Gravel pelted the underbelly of the vehicle. I squinted into the brightness and
went out from there where you are.

• Alaska
• Alaskan
• Alaskana
• Alternative
• composition
• place-based
• Anchorage