We went up Flagstaff Mountain out of Boulder
After ingesting each
Half an orange tablet
Two Air Force Academy zoomies
Drove us up
Let us out three hundred yards or so
Above the canyon floor
Already cold early evening
Early May
Air swirling around
Testing our vulnerable young limbs
Halt again and again
To reconnoiter
Smoke a cigarette and ponder together
The extent of our remaining descent
I then as now thinking
I must take the lead
When I have no compass
My friend Clint patient and kind with me
I didn’t even have a coat
When we got to the bottom
Ticks
A skunk
A dog howling loose on the far side of the canyon
We searching
In the dark for the lid
I got the DTs
Supercilious blue-light-bulb face
Burned into my optic nerve
Clint and I hugged for warmth
And now suddenly
And now suddenly
I can feel
Clint’s hard chest
Smell Clint's
Unwashed shirt
Unwashed shirt
