Degrees — Rachel Dacus

Degrees
An hour after our spat, you call and remark,
that the curtain of rain has parted. The dark

mountain’s summit is now crowned with cloud.
The apex, framed in the window you call a proud,

battered head, wreathed in dew.
Walking out, not many miles north of you,

I see the peak. It floats above crossing freeways,
its bony mass and cumulus flag raised.

The same mountain, you meant, soars in hearts
only a half-hour and a compass angle apart.

To this ancient, hooded sibyl, what can one or two
degrees mean? She shows us the long view.