Sonnet, subtitled for J.T.

Scott Miller

Around us, black on black, the jagged peaks
crumbled in the maw of dire night
like hollow bones. Desultory firelight
caught the tears glissading down your cheeks,
seeking, as the scattered talus seeks,
a firm foundation: feldspar, rhyolite.
Five sizzling trout aroused your appetite;
the rest I tossed back in the stream. For weeks

we trekked these trails: the pine-crunch earth, the ache,
trudging through muck in masochistic blunder,
bearing our burdens. I made a mistake--
maybe the kind you don't come out from under.
You meditated all night by the lake.
I watched the sunrise tear the dark asunder.