Bath Mountain Moon in Winter
by Alissa M. Barr
Tomorrow, the mill’s smoke will inject its billowing
ink into ozone. Holy rollers will clog the main artery
between town and this mountain. But tonight,
there is enough distance to imagine the mill lights
are another city as my tires startle a white-throated
sparrow. I remember my father, silence stretching
like a road between us. Banishment came early
for me, nineteen and stubborn enough to buck
an upbringing. Left the blue ridge razoring the sky.
Left the deer hides and buckets of warm organs.
Left my father holding the smooth pink purse
of an animal’s stomach. I abandoned my tongue
like a bookmark in a defunct dictionary. Now, returning,
dark enters a familiar copse of bitternut hickories. Death
is not always the first finality. There’s a family story
where my father fumbles a fine-tooth comb through
his sister’s hair, her lopsided ponytail buoyed
by wind. He mothers her within the absent
morning hours when their parents disappear
into hard labor. Here, I mark the imagined
memory like a county line I’ll never cross. Here,
I reconcile what I’ve lost. But tonight, my father
remains a gentle boy, and the stars don’t appear
like rock salt scattered across a sheet of black ice.
The moon above glares, not like a face,
but like milky quartz lit from behind.
ink into ozone. Holy rollers will clog the main artery
between town and this mountain. But tonight,
there is enough distance to imagine the mill lights
are another city as my tires startle a white-throated
sparrow. I remember my father, silence stretching
like a road between us. Banishment came early
for me, nineteen and stubborn enough to buck
an upbringing. Left the blue ridge razoring the sky.
Left the deer hides and buckets of warm organs.
Left my father holding the smooth pink purse
of an animal’s stomach. I abandoned my tongue
like a bookmark in a defunct dictionary. Now, returning,
dark enters a familiar copse of bitternut hickories. Death
is not always the first finality. There’s a family story
where my father fumbles a fine-tooth comb through
his sister’s hair, her lopsided ponytail buoyed
by wind. He mothers her within the absent
morning hours when their parents disappear
into hard labor. Here, I mark the imagined
memory like a county line I’ll never cross. Here,
I reconcile what I’ve lost. But tonight, my father
remains a gentle boy, and the stars don’t appear
like rock salt scattered across a sheet of black ice.
The moon above glares, not like a face,
but like milky quartz lit from behind.
Alissa M. Barr is a registered nurse and writer from Alleghany County, Virginia. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ninth Letter, Poet Lore, and elsewhere.