her love is a mountain (for e.)

She didn't think she could love more than this.
She had stretched wide and deep, down to her gut,
down to the shimmying molecules of her blood.
She had walked into the darkest room, seeing nothing,
not even a finger, and still she edged forward.
She had tiptoed naked in a field of nettles, every step
a coiling uncertainty, and still she stepped.

She didn't think she could love more than this.
She had run on the slippery boards of the long boardwalk.
She had curled herself into a thousand question marks.
She had made the spectacular gesture of saying yes.
She had cut fresh strawberries into the shape of a heart.

She didn't think she could love more than this.
She had bought furniture, had made a thousand breakfasts,
had placed her fingertips on another's skin, memorizing each inch.
She had found new words to assign to things, had discovered
a metaphor for marigolds, for deer, for wind, for the purr of a car.

She didn't think she could love more than this.
But even mountains, in their ageless, intractable design,
manage a few centimeters each year, croaking a little movement
from their bones, as if they hadn't quite finished telling their story.

Her love is a mountain, pushing forward by degrees,
resolute in the certainty that there is still more ground to cover.
And even though she didn't think she could love more than this,
she has. And she will.

sdfs