We Mountains
by Abigail Bechtel

Love like wasps
flow like ice

key to a loch
that unlocks nothing

remain like dandelions
sink like helium

my butter half,
melting in the sun

fly like penguins
weep like crocodiles
and leave
like
mountains.

 

Cloud Meetings: Utah, Mine 4730
by Katie Schmidt

Every afternoon the clouds consort, meeting over lake Powell, conspiring to rage, billowing into wicked silk pillars—they slide over land and launch shadows onto baked valleys. A moment of shade brings creeping skinks out from under the sage. The jackrabbit flicks his black tipped ears. The clouds travel, as planned, in a savage pack, hunting the desert for buttes to drench and erode, for beetles that can be floated out of their holes. Sunbaked chainlink burns lattice work onto the backs of migrants on the clock. They lean on it, eating lunch and dust. Eat fast—back into the mine before the rain. Already a gauzy curtain on the nearest ridge; it washes and creates washes, wetting even the gophers in their dry packed solitude. Newborn streams run with urgency and mineral red, rushing off with tiny fossils, arrowheads, bones, plywood and metal fittings, uranium ore—soon-to-be relics of ancient people who worshipped a God called Industry.

 

Saturday Morning in Which I Belong
by Elizabeth Schrag

We went for a run
Feet pounding
Breath coming hard
Legs aching and cramping
Chests tightening with effort

You asked me to tea
Scones
Perfect triangles
Filled with fruit and nuts
A sprinkling of sugar.
The all-familiar comfort of
A mug, resting delicately
In my hands.

NPR
I never liked it before.
But I laughed along with you
My inner liberal
Beginning to find her voice.

I can see a line of Saturdays
Stretched out before me
Taking me back
To where I belong

My mother
Baking in the kitchen
Batting me with a dishtowel
A line of sorrow in her brow
Not because of the life she chose
The reason I always
Attributed it to.
But rather because
This life is passing her by.

I would rather spend my days
In a warm kitchen
Filled with humor
Laughter
Family
Than in a haze,
Hungover, a half
-empty bottle
Of Burnett’s

Bitter as
Shame
Self-hatred
And denial
That a wasted life
is the only life
I am worth living.

Maybe I don’t
Have to run away anymore.
Maybe
I can just run.