Then I Packed You Up the Ridge Like a Brother on My Back
In the blue dark I followed the ridge
toward the pines.
In a bowl of sage and dry grass
soft as the throat-hairs
of something small,
I lay down.
The sun was a long time coming,
the earth bloodless at my belly.
I waited and watched the river.
I was very still. You know how it is—
the stars closing their bright mouths,
the dew a gift on your lips.
You did not see me,
or my rifle,
blue as the dark. I saw you
step from the willows,
give your nose to the black water.
And you were beautiful. There is so much
blood in a thing—
yours welled up from the clean hole
I made in your heart and steamed
on the river stones,
and some washed down into the river,
where it swirled a moment,
and became the breath of fish.
Copyright © 2012 Joe Wilkins. “Then I Packed You Up the Ridge Like a Brother on My Back” was published in Notes from the Journey Westward (White Pine Press, 2012). Used with permission of the author.
Joe Wilkins
Joe Wilkins received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Idaho. He is the author of the poetry collections When We Were Birds (University of Arkansas Press, 2016), Notes from the Journey Westward (White Pine Press, 2012), and Killing the Murnion Dogs (Black Lawrence Press, 2011). He is the director of creative writing at Linfield College and lives in Oregon.