Morning in Jemez

In the fog, things become clear. No,
not clear, three dimensional—there
are layers he has not yet contemplated.
In the smoothing cortex, in the slow
creep tabula rasa, what remains
are the essentials. There is the fuzz
of his wife cheek beneath his palm
as she sleeps beside him, hair curling
at her neck, his roadmapped,
zippered and marked body he can move,
chest out to take in air, forward
into the street, to his daughter’s
back porch, the taste of wine
in his mouth and the sweetness
of someone who will still listen
to an old man—

and the plateau of an unremarkable
New Mexico mountain,
still enough to hear the thump
of his heart and flutter pulse
at his neck and wrists,
and he turns and turns, this
he will not forget, thin air
and cloud scuttle above, a 360 degree
view of some all-knowing infinite.