Running Tongue

by Ruth Nolan
just published in San Gabriel Valley Quarterly #42

smooth water stone
breeze filtering guitar smoke
I’m meditating Zen
at the creek
bottle of wine
haphazard cottonwood leaves
cooling my afternoon

with you
mirrored on shimmer rocks
sun-strobe pattern
I could touch your skin
your steam would filter
through my fingers
when I try to catch

this moment flowing
downhill
from voluptuous mountains
to flattened deserts
where water will dissipate
in the sand
two water stones

smoothed
by rhythm and pulse
a surprising force
wearing me down
until we merge
into one sand spit
licked wide open

dedicated to my cool poetic O.G. beat poet friend, Richard Autio of the Inland Empire weekly poetry group, which is run by another friend/colleague from San Bernardino Valley College, English Professor Joel Lamore. copyright (c) 2009 by Ruth Nolan