Edge of Water, Moiese, Montana

Just this dry mix
of whitening pink and mauve and blue bean
powdered over cache, which becomes beneath
the least lick of the Jocko River
market radish red and cobalt, and some stand
half in bath—
                To outlast alone the doubt one is alone, or
acclimate to a decency, differ in temperature
from the big and little stones in the scree decreasingly,
and search for a place to build a spine.

The phrase for it, catch myself, is fugitive
even. About Moiese the dry first fact
of a scarab, a white one specked in the chalk rock
whose antennae, nearly fabric, are data-fond
and then the woozy look again downriver
an hour on: moose maybe, opposite
and large enough, a legend at the water table
filling the green shade brown. Too, about
Moiese, to spot her, or anything, is a decision.

Put that third. Make a rule. Edges of water
are promise places. Lie back bare and
there is a cable pulling your next thought
to the sun. Rake your face cheek to jaw
with broken mica, and the moth traffic
triples at your back. Is that a fact?