by Joanna Spindler, published in Volume 16, now available. Banner art by Rhiannon Williams
We didn’t have much time
Because an evening wind was rising.
We didn’t have much time
and what was left began to wisp away,
suspended in the particles of ice.
We didn’t have much time.
We searched the fringe of cliffs
but as the daylight faded and
the sun fell down
below the nether reaches of the earth
our hope departed too.
We knew
that you
were gone.
I had one breath to send before
the wind could snatch the rest.
I sent it out over the col
knowing your inhalations
were coming bitter now, and thin,
and drawing to an end, but
all I had for you was one.
Breathed to your lungs with warmth
and summer and the call of home,
sun-warm sweet hay.
And then we turned to leave.
We didn’t have much time.
Joanna Spindler lives in Telluride, Colorado. She moved there for the ice and stayed for the library.
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