Poem: Pacific Crest Trail

Helmut Newton, Chateau d’Aunoy, 1978

There is music in your mouth, the sun the size

of a clenched fist.  

All my own words I tell it you;

When the sun slanted through the windows of that hospital corridor

I would wait for Glasgow soup

Dip my fingers into the earth

While the smokers talked football and home truths.

Two friends, one red, one blue.

They watched me in twos too

Rumi would float up the walls when I read to them

Poetry about lions and wine.

No screaming

Just songs.

Wrote a postcard to Rockbrook

two stamps to get there faster

missing the southern summer

gentle mountains taught me how to grow

now big brain sealed in plaster

frequenter of things no good for me.

If only you all knew

How it was fragile,

big and cruel.

To lock the doors behind me

I, woman, escapee.