Sighting: Almost
BY DONIKA KELLY
Vernal Falls, Yosemite National Park
Never mind the 600 stairs carved in granite
or my guide, a man with a mustache
and no concept of “almost,” or my moaned
why are we going up this hill, at every hill,
or his response that what comes up
must go down, or the somewhere
we’ve almost reached. Mind instead
the three freshmen who breached
the safety rail for a picture on the rocks
and were swept over the falls by a river
gorged with the melting snowpack.
How they must have held each other
in their descent before the Merced
broke them apart.
That was some time ago.
An old man hiking with his son-in-law
flatters me: You are only pretending
to be tired to make us feel
better. The truth: I have come here
to learn how not to kill myself.
My guide takes my picture many times
as we ascend. He captures Half Dome,
El Capitan, Nevada Falls, and me, a sloped
silhouette before the sun.
Sighting: Avalanche
BY DONIKA KELLY
John Muir Trail, Yosemite National Park
Descent should be easy, but the granite
molted like thunder and undid the trail.
The root: water and winter, then spring
and water. The bloom: a cleaving. I picked over
the rocks and broken boughs
and a ground mulched soft.
I carried you to the mouth
of the trail when I meant to recover
only myself. You see, I was the ghost,
and you rose to sing, to be torn to pieces.
