I’m not sure what to call
where he is. In Montana, anything not west
is back-east-of-here. I need to fine tune
my directions-either north or south. I didn’t grow up
with such boundaries. I wonder
should he catch my thoughts, would he turn
and see I’m caught between memories
of melted glaciers, craters of alpine heather, the faint
wagon trail threading through 19th century fir to a legend
of a lake. I once spent a summer, searching
for that water. One hot blue day I jumped in
with all my clothes on, imagining should I ever return, the skip
and holler would still echo in the canyon. I want him
to hear that echo, I want him to make his own. Last time
I hiked this eroded path, he was what was gone
About the author
Sherry O’Keefe, a descendant of one of the first Montana pioneers, a mother of two, sister to four, cousin to dozens, credits/blames her Irish…
Read the full bioIssue 06 · August 2009
Table of contents
- From the editors
- Poetry
- Postcard Prose
- The History of Western Medicine by Lee Goodman
- Education by Pallavi Sharma Dixit
- Getting Rich by Deborah Diemont
- Greetings from Fredrick by Fredrick Zydek
- Travel Notes
More from The Journal
- Postcard Prose
By Kelly Hill
Trying to wrap my mind around living on a tropical island for thirteen years and never once seeing the ocean, I stumbled through my Indonesian vocabulary to say, It’s good. It’s big.
- Travel Notes
By Sandra Larson
A dinosaur dangles over my grandson at the Field Museum near a pink thumb that pops into the prom picture of my granddaughter dressed in strapless red leaving her house in Medina …
- Travel Notes
By Megan Hallinan
The bill in question is actually a 2,000 West African franc note, and it’s the equivalent of about four U.S. dollars. A helpful sum, really, but as I clutch the weathered crinkle in my sweaty palm, its value feels as dirty as the grime that is undoubtedly being transferred to my fingers.
- Poetry
to Egg and Berry brewery, to the pack / of Czechy words I made but didn’t work / in this pink town. I’d readily go back / to your best spots, the unfired gun, that perk //
- Poetry
By Jason Warren
And if the neap tides of my beauty / sadden him, I cannot help it: / I hang high, the waxy night light …
- Poetry
By Anastasia Vassos
Three thousand ancestors ask how I straddle / the sea, a foot on either shore. //
Read more Poetry or Postcard Prose