Already the ground is hardened, stiff and pockmarked with frost, the day brittle and sharp.
Each inhale needles my chest and it reminds me of when you died—how we let out the breath
we didn’t know we’d been holding and took another, our lungs filled with a new, different kind of air.
Above, larches pierce the hillside with golden spires, impossibly bright against the granite sky,
and I’m thinking again of how easy it can be to grieve something before it is gone. How many times
I’ve driven deep into this canyon, looking for a quiet I was sure I’d know when I found it, like how
I still reach out in my sleep each night, each dream a morning memory’s light will never warm.
Emily Harman is a queer poet based in the mountains and forests of the Pacific Northwest. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Chestnut Review, Wildness, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. Emily is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Montana, where she teaches creative writing and serves as Poetry Editor for Cutbank. She can usually be found outside.
