She was an Andean maiden, a sacrificial victim, an embodiment of unspoken longings, sealed in a frozen tomb at the peak of a Bolivian mountain. I heard Inca music leading me on for years before I ever met her, walked up glaciers to find her, searched the headwaters of the Amazon for her essence, bathed my soul in forbidden tears, 
brought her treasures and tribute, laid my offerings at the foot of her mountain heights . . . but she was not there. Her tomb was empty. She was living in a mining town in Arizona with hair died Gothic black. I tried in vain to win her, I wrote her poems, prayed for her, but communication was impossible.
She wouldn’t splash around in the wading pool—
and I wanted to plunge below the Atlantean depths with her.
She figured I was a misfit outsider—I thought she was the fate of the Americas.
I offered her the treasures of darkness—she wanted someone to pay her light bill.
I would have borne her burdens—she gave me the cold shoulder.
I moved out of that town about nine months after she got knocked-up (not by me), and I lost touch, forever.
The unanswered question:
why did this person make such an indelible impression on me?
