Current Issue: Spring/Summer 2011

In Drought Time 
Charles Harper Webb

This mountain trail is like his marriage:
           dry, dusty, hard, hobnailed
                      with stones to trip on, which he

promptly does. Sandwiched between
           buddies who chat about Italian
                      suits and Zuni pots, he breathes

as if he's swallowed a sharp rock.
           The trees are pine, fir, cedar, mixed
                      with a few oaks—somehow still green.

How deep their roots must grow!
           How hardy they must be, sustained
                      by dew, distilling life from sun

that sears him, air too thin to fill
           His heart has shriveled.
                      Lack of tenderness has burned it

brown as the big redwood his friends
           point out, parasitized by mistletoe
                      that prompts no kisses, hung

in tatters as dead as the tree.
           Why don't we rest? he asks himself,
                      hating his friends' shifting buttocks

and thick, relentless thighs. He aches
           to call out, Guys, I need a break,
                      but can't admit so much weakness.

Above them soars Suicide Peak
           from which an Indian princess,
                      lovelessly betrothed (in legend)

leaped. The peak—bare, pinkish rock
           polished by rain, wind, snow—
                      looks like a clitoris. The trail keeps

climbing, but his pain has plateaued:
           just barely endurable,
                      he thinks, and stumbles on.

 

Charles Harper Webb's latest book, Shadow Ball: New & Selected Poems, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in Fall 2009. Recipient of grants from the Whiting and Guggenheim foundations, Webb directs Creative Writing at California State University, Long Beach.