It was long ago now, the way hail
kept falling into the open September street
right after flash floods there stripped back
hickory and willow roots.
This is our lives, how our story vanishes
into memories, into winter after winter.
Our faces blend into night snows,
and the plans we made break apart like
clumps of shadow in firelight. The road out of dark
is taken back into dark—a thousand bees
rush down from the moon. This is our dream,
the one like a vast city becoming
a heap of dust, or a long sleepless night
sinking suddenly into its faultlines.
And the coming hour is just a scar. Look now,
our path is gone just as it sets out—our history
is a fever the morning frost has. It started long ago,
hail, hail falling without a sound.
Alexander Etheridge has been developing his poems and translations since 1998. His poems have been featured in The Potomac Review, Scissors and Spackle, Ink Sac, Cerasus Journal, The Cafe Review, The Madrigal, Abridged Magazine, Susurrus Magazine, The Journal, Roi Faineant Press, and many others. He was the winner of the Struck Match Poetry Prize in 1999, and a finalist for the Kingdoms in the Wild Poetry Prize in 2022. He is the author of, God Said Fire, and the forthcoming, Snowfire and Home.