The sleek thighs of the prairie rise in remembrance and reclamation, bearing grass as fruit and wind as wine and stars as beads of sweat. The sweep of the breast and the rise of the hip shape the sky and pull the weary traveler into a clear pool of dreams and flesh and molten honey.
There’s not much time, you think, before the brutal wind levels the land completely, before her body becomes dust and slips through your fingers, before the gold bits wash to the sea, before you realize that you are just another wanderer needing nourishment, not precious metals.
Years pass in nights passing, a child is born and grows strong. He becomes an image reflected in moving water. He lays his hand upon the same broad hip. He enters the same far-flung sky. He becomes another constellation without a legend, another traveler without a story, another river without a name. In a clearing in the forest, he rises to meet you, and you remember him.