The Photographer and his Wife

Alone                                                                                            
sitting                                                         
sniffing to realize
                                        the mold
                                     wet north
in a wooden ghost house

Victorian
bare
                              broken and no-ones

climbing out to the balcony                         
and traversing                                                   
the knobs and ledges          
clutching to wet                                              
        graham cracker shingles
digging feet into the rotting wood             
descending to                               

the ground floor               
                                   
                                          On a porch
Ahgreyeuss Pahn finds living here          
                                                         a photographer and a woman
looking at photographs of dreams

There is a dream of nearby
                                    The woman standing
                                             by a small cave

                                           There is slanting rain
                                                       It is only striking her face

                                                           between shadow

                                                             and limbs

There is a dream of a man in bed

                   Faceless
                                 No background

Ahgreyeuss says                                                    
“This is a real dream”

…

The three of them journey south on foot

                              through mountains       coastal        and damp
going home
                                     Soon

they have come to                                          
          the Sacramento River

too wide                               to swim            or wade
                                                                   across      looking
for a bridge…

…now in a car
the photographer drives                                   
very fast                and curvy
through grassland
outcrop hills  
so fast                            

                                  that Pahn’s body is thrown          out of the car

The photographer pulls over                       
and stops     
to search for Pahn’s body

over barbed wire         
down cattle roads
                           toward the river        They are
chased off by ranchers
They                                            
go down to a creek            
to get around them
Looking for a bridge again       
they wade in                                                          
                                                chest deep

pushing upstream     between

       vertical            sandstone walls

           covered            with inscriptions 
                   that darken
                                                         and deepen        as they wade
becoming            carvings and caves   
 from which come
  faceless spirit-people
in the deep     and muddy
calm                    
                                     who menace intangibly

                                             From upstream

floating

comes a basketball

Ahgreyeuss Pahn grabs it        holds it up
                                                                     to the spirit people
and they disperse
                                   He throws it at them
and they smudge away
   

                                     Having cleared the air
Ahgreyeuss wades by himself                                                      
to where the shore slopes southward
and he climbs into the hills                                    
to find   
his translucent-light-blue-wife           
lying            sleeping 
                              
 From the Artemisia and stones

he lifts her              
She smiles
and the two of them begin

                                                      to walk

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