The Drive to Descanso

Staring out at the road going backwards,
from the third seat of a Chevy station wagon,
there are things about youth that only youth knows:
the cracking of ice, underground passageways, fires lit
in a ring around the lake, the sound of a door slamming.

Barefooted you wander off, you were six
with your hair cut in a pixie.
Father was gone.
This hunger, dark and nocturnal,
strong enough not to wish
you were there. Brother and sisters,
like wildflowers assembled
in a museum of stones.

Mother was drunk. She’d dance
and chant snow across the mountain
until ash from dead fires ringed
her. A part of you brighter
and silent, floats among the flakes.
But what you recall most
is the danger of sunrise,
its pink lantern scorching the trees.