Note to My Brother, Backgrounded by Mountains
Noon light mid-Appalachians, just past New River,
Long past the spiked canopies of Charleston elongating
Into the spines and ridgebacks asleep like dragons
We shared in books together. This highway trails
That contour into your future.
When she moved
Outside Fresno, Mom’s backyard felt absurd
Below the Sierras: mountains watching
On the horizon, distant in judgment;
The subdivision’s new construction—
Fresh finish on the fence, lazy ceiling fans
Twirling on every porch.
‘Burbs for a surrealist,
Mythic golden crests backgrounding it all
And I couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder
At a California so unconcerned with me.
The Ohio hills always limited the horizon,
And we felt larger in the landscape.
So, trailing your moving van
Southward toward Florida, I look into the reaches
Of Virginia, and at that imagined ulterior:
Brothers on a mountain, watching outside
of time and likelihood.
I wish this weren’t an elegy:
I’d rather take my shift in a day of driving.
I wanted you to know that I considered
The impossible, that I lived in that image
That consumes my doubt—the moment that condenses
Into dream, then forgets itself.
ZACHARIAH MCVICKER is the co-editor of Ninth Letter’s online editions at the University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign, where he teaches Creative Writing, Business & Technical Writing, and first year composition. He has previously published poems in the Birmingham Poetry Review and 32 Poems, and in Best New Poetry from the Midwest – 2014. His poetry was selected by Roger Reeves for the Carol Kyle Award for Poetry.
