Rocky Mountain High

I don’t remember mountains in Denver.
I mistook them for clouds steeped
in shadow, soaked in wind, hugging

the horizon, limiting the distance of
our spectacled vision. Without a car,
the road through the mountains was

something to imagine, not to travel.
I remember walking wide streets, past
empty storefronts and flickering neon cacti.

Cutting through the university quad free
of weeds and students, we talked
about books we’d read and then

ambled to Safeway and the apartment.
I remember watching Seinfeld in black
and white. We drank Crystal Pepsi,

ate toasted bagels, the frozen kind,
smaller than my fist. Cynthia drew the
smoky drapes against night’s noise, against

mountains in the distance, the future
of endless beginnings and false starts,
our late twenties, the nineteen nineties.