We are continuously drifting apart.
It can’t be helped. When we come together

our edges seem to fit, but there’s always
a space between, even when it can’t be seen.

Here, the evidence is clear: the river of black sand
where the stones have worn down – volcanic rocks rising

on each side of the rift, jagged grooves a laceration.
Wound. What we say or don’t say – raising our voices

over the lava-scarred plane. There are no trees
to stand in the way, no throng of bush or cloud

to block the expanse of sky. Just a field
of purple lupine, the occasional yellow poppy,

growing low in the shelter of boulder and moss,
which I pick and place in my pocket, though I know

I will forget and find it later, wilted, brown.
We walk in the fissure’s middle, though the signs

warn against it, the bridge overhead a symbol.

In the air a tern I’ve never seen, reeling
to the blue of the Arctic sea in the distance.

It is not too far to walk.