For years I’d see Tim free fall from some height while sitting still
in the backwoods of his life
after his wife
died
of alcohol poisoning he cut off his heart finger
like a Lakota
as he told her story I imagined the silhouette
of a woman staring out of a window
the light is so intense it pushes the edges
of her silhouette towards the middle
into a thin black line waving like a blade of grass in the wind
…while trembling we still offer our hand
we still take the journey
off the grid: wireless walls (I still feel the feral freedom of being
when I asked about what’s inside (what you taught from
a branch bowed down from 56 winters of snow
living from the bottom of the world you inherit
the dread of things being upside-down forever
…you said
“what you see is what you get”
an unexpected heart attack while alone
You existed. You took breath.
You loved your cabin on the mountain:
red gravel and clay silt
an old miner’s road that led from your front yard (your best friend: a crow
up the unnamed mountain (flies miles above searching for you
to a grassy cliff overlooking the 25 corridor
where we sat once in remnants of an
older cabin–a silver miner
only the outline of a foundation remained and it felt like wind and rain were
watching each other and that we are all
like missing stones ::: dropped into the sea
at midnight every day we live and die at the same time
as blood runs the border between like dead a man’s river that drips away
like trying to see someone approaching through glass
when all you can make out is a glare from the inside
through the misty panes of the cabin
::: I see footprints
::: in the snow
leading up to the door
Donnie Hollingsworth has lived in many small Rocky Mountain towns, and currently resides in La Junta, Colorado, with his cat and wife.
