tonight’s particulars tie
my short breath moment
to a blood root recall to
perhaps an evening such
as this 1888 in wyoming
where kids dunno snow
can fall straight ‘steada
sideways my great great
grandpa’s horse returned
riderless in the icy indigo
hours of a tuesday dawn
from a desperate decision
for meat which drove him
up a squalling mountain i
conjure the deep chasm a
twice great grandmother’s
stomach screamed down
watchful & waiting before
his head appeared at the
hillcrest late that following
friday how she’d’ve flung
her new babe on the bed
how she’d have flown out
t’find him again a tangible
thing & seen something
wrong before she reached
‘are y’shot’ cried & caught
by wind ‘no worse’n that’
words & worn man fell into
‘er arms like the avalanche
which had swept him down
an entire mountainside over
every stump & stone which
split ribs into splinters then
shivved ‘em deep in his lungs
‘til pneumonia festered for
days on a broken trek back
to his wife boys & baby how
ice & air must have harrowed
what horrors she uncovered
peeling gloves & boots that
had frozen fused to flesh
she trudged then too thru
a hopeless nightwatch his
fervent words fevered & so
feeble ‘i thought too much
of you & the children t’die
up there in the snow & you
never knowin’ where i was’
‘til her tears & his tongue
were too thick t’speak so
he clung for 3 days & let go