What a View from the Top

What a View from the Top

They drove to the top of the hill
for the panorama, the valley,
the ocean, the bank of fog between.
She spoke of many things, but he
just stared, in awe of how much
distance his eyes covered.
She centered the two of them
with small unimportant matters.
He sent them on their way
with a distant figure on a trail
that could have been a man,
a woman, anything.
He kept staring from the line
of firs to the farms, to the small
coastal town, to the morning horizon
like a gold chain around
the sky's wide throat.
She rattled on about Anna and Terri
and Cindy, as if knowing the
details of people's lives
was like observing landscape in its way.
He drove to the top of the hill.
She rode to where her head was.