We drove through the yellow aspen trees, shooting down the highway
Touching the ground at four points:
Four parabolas where rubber becomes
Another part of the road
And the road wound us intrinsically
Through each mountain
Which was crisp but not quite ready to
Give itself up to winter.
Each hill a burial ground for wind
And animal bones
The evergreens like pinpricks,
Like holes punched into the earth
A series of transient vessels
Which, from our point,
Seemed immovable.

A smile escapes your hollow expression
Revealing the inside of your lips
Which glowed red as you laughed
Listening to the acceleration of your car
And finally I understood
That you had nothing to do with
What we were becoming. You were just
A human being, a young man,
A person made of flesh and dreams
The way we all were
Trying so hard, with your sensitive touch, trying
To feel the deeper parts of the universe.
And that’s how it was with you. Worst
Of all I could tell it was all ephemeral,
That our courses would soon change
And the scenery would be different—
We might still be suspended, but
The vessels carrying us would touch the ground
At different locations.

So when someone asks you to find x,
You know that x is temporary,
It is a point that only exists in this moment.
X is a pit stop on interstate 70.
X is the spot in your garage where you lose yourself
To the machinery of an engine.
X is a plane taking you away from here, taking you to
school somewhere south.
X is an asymptote approaching infinity, approaching the
End of the universe but never quite reaching it,
The way stars poke holes in the sky and
Young people lay on blankets and wonder
If those undefined spaces mean anything at all—
Or maybe they are just another part of a
Beautiful fleeting experience, and x
Is just another one of its limits.

X is the place you set your hand down in the grass
Next to the hand of the person sharing this night with you.
And f(x) is the path your fingertips make
To the edge of their jaw, and
There is simply no equation for the
Look they give you when you
Touch their face so gently like that.
X squared is the way your eyelashes fall
On your cheeks when you blink,
Perfect and symmetrical like the shape
Of a parabola
Touching base for a moment at the origin
Then travelling back up again.

You look at me as we reach the end of the road
Catching a cloud in your eyelashes.