From a blanket on a hill in West Virginia
by Jake Maynard
These hills don’t know they’re not mountains.
Low sun, like grapefruit, frames your silhouette.
Does this make you my alpenglow? I don’t know–
but we are surrounded with invasive species:
knotweed, kudzu, my small suicide dreams.
I heard your mad phone call to the neighbors
downvalley. But they’ll still kill coyotes
at dusk, with those recorded rabbits’ cries
to draw in the whole pack.
Is it fear that roots your rage?
Remember there were panthers here once,
two golden wishes blooming in the dark–