El Dorado (Goodbye, Utah)
       

Mi amor, I'm surrounded by mountains.
I'm inside their ring, one never to know

a ring finger. I miss the pueblo of our
nakedness. A magnet pulls at me tonight,

the opposite of the Pacific Sea's name.
I tire of burying sunsets in this nuevo west,

of turquoise shops selling the wrong sky,
and of the search for El Dorado dwindling

into a hunt for a high; it's all a bare-bones
version of salvation. This isn't a tequila

letter or an abstract tourniquet. You may
only hear this as an echo, a cartographer's

mumble. Sometimes, I travel too far from
myself and need proof that I've not died.

How I miss your bed's golden myopia.
I'm even without moonlight's silver tonight.

Copyright © 2009 Rane Arroyo All rights reserved
from The Sky’s Weight
Turning Point Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission