Run

by Cynthia Neely
Desert Moon Review
Third Place, December 2010
Judged by Paul Lisicky


You were eight when Rain-dog died; we buried
him high up on the hill where pine trees sigh
and sing in the rain. When you got married?
that baby? did it die? you ask, Will I

be buried there too? And my words still clot,
then jumble out, tumbled like scrabble tiles.
Today you are twenty and I am not
any closer to explaining things; miles

between us, miles and wings. You say, I’m fine
But I recall a day when you were five.
I held your hand (then, you still wanted mine)
and that dumb dog stuck his snout in a hive

of yellow jackets. Your laces were undone.
Even then, I could only holler, Run!


Memory and bewilderment: so much life compressed in these four stanzas. ---Paul Lisicky