Secret City

It’s been harder to breathe
for at least a week.

 

We have been climbing since
before today was a day,
breaking our scant camp in the dark.
(We are down to a single blanket).

 

We are lost
but for the guides
who walk ahead of us
whose voices drift back
through the mist
that burnt off
and reformed as clouds.

 

The guides murmur to each other
but have taught us only
stop
left
right
and walk

 

Walk they repeat in their soft voices.

 

Walkwalkwalkwalk

 

We cannot see them
on the trail ahead.

 

I hear my breath
and my heart pounding,
A pebble scatters down the mountainside

 

Walkwalkwalkwalk

 
We’ve been lost for weeks,
or more.
We’ve lost track.
We no longer care.

 

Exhausted with pain.
All other senses gone.

 

I am too tired to remember
how we started this.

 

We were lost.
We argued.
We wandered.
And then we grew too tired to argue.

 

It would not get us home.
It would not save our lives.
It would not tell us which path.
It would not so much as fill the tin cup with water from the stream.

 

That is when the trip changed
without our trying to change it.

 

And then,
(was it the third day?)
the guides came.
We were well up the mountainside.

 

Walkwalkwalkwalkwalkwalk
they said
leftleftleft
motioning
walkwalkwalkwalk

 
And so we followed
from that time until this time.

 

Now we climb,
one behind the other,
watching our footfalls
on the narrow path.

 

A cold thin wind blows a break in the clouds.

 

You stop.

 

I stop.

 

The guides fall silent.

 

All is still,

 

but for the wind and our breathing.

 

In the still-shrouded break,
we see, or think we see,
the steps
to a secret and ancient city.

 
Copyright Kay Winter

Trailways 3

I go back some nights,
through time,
and tell myself
that I was right.
That I was brave.

I sit down gently next to
the me huddled in the back of the Trailways bus
hunched over my diary,
getting off to smoke at each stop.

I tell that me
that this is the right thing,
this terrible leaving
with no intent to return.
I tell that me
that I am right in giving up
what should be given up.

I take my hand
and tell that me
that the morning after the next one
will be better.

(I tell that me that the next morning
I will hardly remember,
but for the cold porcelain denting my forehead,
while I weep, vomit, and regret
vodka and entire years.)

I tell that red-eyed me:
“The morning after tomorrow
you will wake in the home of a friend
to a soft snow
and through the window
you’ll see a crapapple tree
dusted with snow.
And that day
will be the first day
of the right thing.”

The Real Thing

The Real Thing crawls out with barely a glisten
from the stairs at the end of the dim hallway.
It looks up at you like some modern Grendel.
The Real Thing says: “Yeah. You. Hello.
And hello to the night
you dare approach me.”
You think, “I didn’t think the Real Thing
would be quite so real.”
The Real Thing sits back on its haunches, filing a claw.
The Real Thing glares at you.
Smirks.
“I like that you weren’t expecting me,” it says.
You take a step closer.
You can hear the Real Thing’s breathing
turn to a low growl.
It opens its mouth
and begins to file its teeth.
“Fuck,” you think. “Fangs.”
You take one more step, flex your fists,
take two steps, three steps.
You can smell the dirty fur, the wet feathers.
The Real Thing stinks
of your sweaty disappointment.
You flex your knees, getting ready to fight.
The Real Thing stands up suddenly
and tosses its head back and forth.
You go in to get it.
You go in.

OctPoWriMo Poem 20 – Angels

Sometimes the angels come down
From on high
And get drunk at the corner tap
They float and careen down my street
Wings akimbo and flapping awkwardly
Setting off car alarms
And waking up dogs
They sing mambo songs
In languages only they understand
One stands forever on the bus shelter bench
Swigging from a bottle of wine
And yelling out “Fear not! I said! Fear! NOT!
I said fear not! FEAR! NOT!”