Workshop of two

After separate journeys across
old thresholds, through uncharted
terrain, and deep into a wilderness
both familiar and strange,
we step in between the lines,
and we empty our pockets
of poems we found along the way:
the other side of night, a river's
departure from its winding course,
dowser's boughs, blue moons,
red cardinals, green water
splashing in a bucket full of trout.
A fire kindled in the forest,
regret, deep breaths, the Milky Way,
stories lost in smoke, chambered hearts,
the curve of the sea as it returns
to the shore, long, slanted shadows,
and a winter's worth of meltwater.
We gently sift through each poem,
letting it fall through each other's
hands, then back into our own.