Still: The Journal

Long after dark had fallen 

and the trail left behind,

long after the dog I had chased 

into the unfamiliar woods 

disappeared, she long gone into oaks 

and hickory and brush—and likely 

back asleep on the porch 

of my new boyfriend’s cabin—

I saw a fire in the distance 

and walked toward it. There 

in their camp, orange light flashing 

across their rough bearded faces, 

creased in dirt, unruly feral hair, 

tin cups in grimy hands 

like that movie. Relaxing, they

mocked and jabbed at each other,

after a long day of timbering. 

Nearly all jumped up when 

I wandered in, but the youngest, a teenager, 

stayed seated, continued pawing 

at the ground with a hatchet 

while I spoke, as if he were embarrassed. 

I was about his age and pretty enough, if

that ever matters, and alone 

in the woods, completely soaked

in fear, finding no real relief 

in discovering their camp. 

I counted quickly. There 

were eight of them. Their eyes 

as astonished as mine 

that we were there, together, 

miles away from everyone and 

everything in the middle 

of the night woods. They huddled 

a few moments, looking over 

to eye me and then back to hushed talk. 

Finally, two set down their whiskeys.

It had been determined. They would be the ones 

to drive me back. The drive was quiet 

but for me in the middle of the cab, 

pointing out turns. When I stumbled 

from the old logging truck 

into the washing blue lights

of the sheriff’s and deputy’s cars, 

I rushed into the arms of a man I would 

date for only a few more weeks. 

It’s good to remember this kindness of men,

especially in the times we are living. 

After the Fall

At the park path near my home, my dog

stops always to sniff around her makeshift memorial,

a plastic wreath, a laminated poster with her photo,

at the foot of the train trestle from which she fell. 

I look up 90 feet towering over, the equivalent 

of falling from a building with eight floors. 

Each time I pass by I wonder what in the world

could have urged her onto the tracks that night?

What dare? What thing was she looking for,

and did she find it before she heard the whistle?

Had she not stepped onto the trestle that evening, 

had the train not been coming, perhaps she’d be 

living in a dorm that high. There’s a tower like that 

at the university my daughter attended. Or the girl might be

working in an office building. 

                                                                 When time for her break,

she pushes back from her metal desk, catches a glimpse

down eight stories to the street below, all busyness

stopped for a moment at the red light, the delivery trucks 

idling, the bicyclists balancing, keen

to wheel on. Perhaps forehead on cold glass,

she shudders, feeling a little dizzy. What might that 

fall be like? At whose feet might she land before? 

Someone hurrying home with a birthday cake 

with blue icing or a bouquet of hydrangeas?

And what of their celebrations then? 

We hear the sirens while out on 

the screened porch, rosé wine in hand 

on a warm Saturday night, dog curled 

at our feet, when in a fallow field 

beneath the trestle, the policewoman, 

our neighbor, with teenagers of her own 

at home (or so she thinks), walks toward 

a patch of crushed blond grass. In 

the byline of the newspaper article, the next

day I read the name of my student. 

She’s the reporter called to talk to witnesses:

she makes notes, standing beside the stream 

that has always run under the trestle. A slow 

rain begins to pock the water. We hear it, 

too, striking our porch’s red metal roof. 

The Trestle Is Haunted

The trestle is haunted by a Goat-

man. He is not carrying a Bible,

nor any sacred book, nor is he

wearing a priest’s collar. He’s not

wearing clothes at all, his eyes are

not blue like Jesus’, he has no hair

though he is covered in fur, and

gnats circle his head and horns

like a gnarly halo. Some say he swings

a bloody axe. Have you seen a photo 

of goats sleeping in trees? Or the video 

of a goat walking upright through 

the streets of India? Like a man? Then 

you may be able to see what is not there,

too. At the trestle. What is not there is 

what’ll kill you, knock you dead 

into the field below. From the trestle 

tall as an eight-story building, which 

is also not there, but is, nonetheless, 

as deadly to fall from.