Waking Under Spruce With My Love

Up the hill the motorcycle climbs, its sound
near now, entering the dream
and the girl’s hair flares

because it is morning, because I have been sleeping
long enough to become one of the muscles
flexing beside the world’s gristle.

I can feel the sheet luff on my thighs, the emptiness
cool and pleasant inside my body, and time
stops counting the spruce limbs.

I think this must be the silence they all loved so much
except I can hear a dog barking, a big dog
far away, then his nails gouging dirt

and I feel myself twist for the articulation to be free
the little engine pumps hard, she hangs
on my shoulders, and we are not

going down in grinding of gravel, not this time, we are
filling silence with the two-stroke slide
of the morning and time rattles

like joy in the spruce, in the car-door slammed, the jay
spitting out the black, stale hours
the sun flying over each bump

in the road, touching the essence of each thing until
the world ticks with unbearable delight,
slows, turns, and comes hard again.