We Refused to be Eachother

We refused to be eachother, you and I.
When I was 5 and you were 8,
I followed the deer and the snowstorms
and you watched television in the motel room.
We grew up there, up in the mountains
Next to the retreat center, two hours from
the nearest pizza joint, three steps from the graveyard.

I found out that
you were beautiful
because you could see the
sunlight in the breath of night
And everything you said was
better and wiser than
the gibberish-speak of our parents.

When Peter died, you told
me to pack my things
And we left and lived with
the fishermen who did not know about
Peter or his dying or who we were
and how we were not eachother.

When we saw the long-haired woman
rise up from her pillar of stone
you told me to be still
and so I was
though I was shaking.

When we returned at dawn,
we snuck into the barnyard and balanced ourselves on
the dusty wooden planks of the rafters
eighty feet above the ground.
When the light yawned between us
we could see the whispers of morning dust
settle onto the tops of our heads.
If I fall, you fall, you said.
Yes. Your eyes are blue, I said.