Down a scarp of gray rock and dust,

not a brook, not even

a rill, but a lick

dribbles, through sheer heat,

all day and under every flood

night ends. Mud the color of dusk

remembers an earlier slither,

and skinned roots claw

a coolness in air

flowing past my shins. I kneel

and call Ginger to the water

in my a hands, a cold shock,

a splash of the first night

out of the Garden,

two people on their backs

under the unlocked stars,

touching along arms and legs,

silenced by a glittering distance.

Here, on the trail to Temple Ridge,

my dog lowers her face, looks to mine,

and laps, and keeps lapping

until my hands are open and empty

but for stroke after stroke

of her insistent tongue.