44
CIRQUE
and the magnificent rack they would haul home. Tomorrow they will wound it, pursue it to an undergrowth of sumac, carve out the great rage still moving under its skin.
Doris Horton Thurston
The Tale Tradition
They tell tales I can’t match or even write on paper. Young men of exact walk and penis talk, hardy survivors of ice cliffs and rock falls—why should they not spin their own yarns, embellished with the will of wine, women and song! In the bar they sing it well!
But for now, they squat by the fire, gnaw on charred squirrel exhumed. What is she trying to prove, laughing at their body-jokes, passing the Jägermeister around? At what point does she know she would lie with any or all of them to survive the hunt? Could it be holy, ritual close as animal, the open mouth bleeding out?
I’ve watched one of them, nearly every day, stop to pee in front of my cabin. Deliberate, I think, though he’s never glanced my way. Perhaps it is a salute to the sled dog that lives down the road, that pees on the very same bush every day, bays at the night moon. Outside the bar they sing well.
Nothing in her life has prepared her for this. Unable to sleep, she watches the five of them hard at work in their dreams, smells their unwashed bodies, and her own, hears the lungs inflate, deflate as if they had grown suddenly old, too heavy with their needs exposed, their breath thick with liquor, the threat of snow, the bordering pines, black Bitterroots to the east.
That’s how I live their tales, and set to paper my songs. In the bar I sip long. I listen well.
Tim Troll
The Ravens of April There is no solace in the sound of ravens cawing in the flat light of late April afternoons Nor comfort in these longer days marking the turn to the promise of June
Janet Levin
There is only Winter cloaked in black wings perched in the high timbers to mock our awkward walk toward Spring