You Have Harnessed Yourself Ridiculously to a Mountain with No Name
after Lucie Brock-Broido
Jeremy Windham



This aerial view:                                                      your little boy skull leading your body leeward.

Your two feet, a pair of rusted pendulums             counting away             each second to sundown

somewhere east of dusty Los Lunas.                From above, you watch yourself reaching

for the cactus bloom below     and retract after the sting.                            You hear yourself think,                                  
No, this isn’t me. I wouldn’t hurt myself.                                                          Then you are off again,

                             scouring the trail for what will elude you                              well into manhood.

The search party was at it for five hours,              all men,                your own father among them. 

You had planted your feet,                            socks and shoes caught in a four-wing saltbush,           

ankle-deep in loose mountain loam             before they unearthed you.             O Lost-and-Found,

                       when you remember yourself at nine                                        you are formless,       

        fixed over the crown of your own head.                               You are less relieved

to have been saved than you should be,                       but some memories are more like homilies

                   urging you into your own imagined sky.

About the author:
Recently featured in Best New Poets 2014 and recipient of a Best of the Net nomination, Jeremy Windham holds a BFA in creative writing and violin performance. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Portland Review, Ruminate, The Lake, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Cider Press Review, Rainy Day Magazine, Southern Humanities Review, and Spillway, among others.