Search Party of One

Border patrols search
the Swiss Alps year round
to find lost climbers, wayward
souls, wandering spirits who climb
without gear, and willingly fall
down through the cloud cover
into a vortex of open air,
freezing in freedom.

It was the hat that gave me away,
but I fudged my way through the
barrage of their inane questioning,
convincing them to turn away so I
might continue my search for you.

My nose dives downward like
the steepest of slopes. I am as pale
as the snow, my lips painted red.

I know what you loved most about me,
my acceptable level of crazy, my poncho
as purple as my sombrero as if that
kind of hat would serve me here.

It matters not that I am not in Mexico.
It matters not that this is Switzerland,
It matters not that it is snowing.
It matters that I keep looking…

Surrounded by mountains, I search
for you in the highest elevations,

Search Party of One

through slippery slopes and blizzard
disguising paths at Dufourspitze,
the Dom, and now in the blistering
cold of the Matterhorn.

I’m not a climber or a hiker, I’m a lover,
gliding across pristine virgin snow.
I pitter-patter in my stocking feet.
They must be frozen but I can’t feel it.

The only thing that matters is my hat,
understand all else is vertical,
thus the hat balances the horizontal,
keeps it real. Who am I? Why have I come?
Where am I going?
All irrelevant.

My lover died somewhere, I don’t
know where but I have chosen to look
for him here. It is my aim to join him,
if not beside his frozen carcass, then
up on the slope that traverses
the snow-covered gate
where I hear his yearning spirit
call to me.

I imagine the ice-covered tips of the mountains
to be my pointy breasts, the shadowed valley
dipping into undergrowth below my belly.
I want you to not be polite, throw me down
on my sombrero and take me, take all of me.

Search Party of One

The clouds crossing overhead tell me, as does
the pink and yellow horizon. I can sense you
are looking for me too. I welcome your ice
cold caress, your frosty lips as dry as mine.
My thoughts race ahead, rehearsing
what I will say when I find you.