Summer '95, and the backseat
held all the pillows.
Me and Sister sat
imagining in Books of Three
as we left the state. I don't remember
if we went through Kansas
or took the panhandle.
Fell asleep with hay bails
out my window
rolled up like Ho Hos.
I awoke as we teetered up the peak
in our Astro van.
That two weeks of Colorado cabin
was pencil drawings and Pit. No TV.
An untrained strum and a singing spring.
Snow won't melt that high.
All along that peak
lived the moody mountain goats.
When we tried their trails
they kicked gra** out of the ground.
Once we hiked and hiked up
past the timberline
for the twilight wedge.
We raced down the mountain
to beat out the dark.
My stomach got stuck
like a washing machine.
Dad gave me his back
and he carried me down.
I bruised both his sides
with my eight-year-old knees.
And on the Great Sand Dunes
I felt like Lawrence of Arabia.
Mosquitoes everywhere.
Dad and I ran down
while Mom and Meghan watched,
hand-billed and freckling.
We ate off metal trays
at Flying W Ranch.
Applesauce to hold it.
Spent the Fourth bundled in the van
for Air Force fireworks.
I'd like to live alone sometimes.
Come in for weekends.
Be a brother, find a girl
who feels the same.
Take our little boy to show
the sunset on mountain goat peak.