Eclogue for Darkness

It began with the accident—with head scraping asphalt, with blood and confusion. Or perhaps it began earlier with promises and pheromones, in the dwindling light of summer with a storm running through the stable. That year, I learned never to build a barn against the weather, learned to position it so the winds pass through. I had not yet discovered the word breezeway. I had not yet discerned when to harbor someone and when to let them move through me. All my knowledge was elemental: the lime- stone gracing the soil, possums decaying on the pike, the coppery taste of blood. I did not anticipate the accident. I did not anticipate how, after the accident, your mouth would mark mine, taking stock of my body the same way I surveyed the acreage each morning, contemplating every depression and swell. When you whispered If I asked, would you…My answer— ready, absolute—remained unspoken. It took me too many years and too many men to realize that you had actually been asking. Now, when I show visitors the farm, the tour is routine: Here is the well we sealed years ago. Here is the lane where my pony is buried. Here is a descendent of the farm’s foundation mare. The visitors nod, ask questions about horses or tractors, unknowingly retrace the path we walked the night you first touched my cheek. I do not think about falling or fumbling. I do not speak your name, do not say, This is where he found me. This is where the blood began to pool.