Olivia DelGandio

I Fly Across the Country For You to Show Me Something Beautiful

I wake up too early and in the dark.
Morning light rises and everything is glowing.
Today, this morning, the trees are more gold than green and there
is a song that I want to listen to but instead I choose not to
be sad.
I have been thinking about you for three days now.
As if I have conjured you like the ghost that you have become,
there you are on my too bright
phone screen and now I am remembering the time we /
together / woke up too early and in the dark.
You drove me four hours to see something beautiful (eight hours in
total).
You let me sleep in the passenger seat.
You drank that bad gas station coffee you claim to love.
You listened to a podcast about walking from Mexico to Canada
and in my half slumber, I marveled at the dedication of
those who wander.
Did you feel me thinking about you?
Did you feel me remembering the moment that morning when you
pulled the blanket off of my sleeping body and I didn’t
even get mad?
(because oh, how good it was to be near you)
Did you feel me remembering how on that day we / together
watched both the sun rise and set? Did you?
Is that why you reached across sky and earth and sea to talk to me
on this glowing morning?
I wonder, unaware that a few days later I will dream that we are in
love.
That a few days later, I will wake up to the third day of rain.