Alpine Clutch, Grief, & Hallucinations

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Alison Harney

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Alpine Clutch

That summer we climbed a ski slope,
a mountain lashed, yellow buds
and grasses attempting to cover the scars.

The incline leaned close to our chests,
as our breath grew shallow and quick.
We noticed the insignificance

of the village below, how the maze
of clearings snaked and merged,
before diverting again. So many ways

one can leave the top, you said.
And we thought about success, and all the king’s horses,
all the king’s men, the mountains crumbling

into the river, sifting their way to the sea.
We could not break the shell of sky, nor finger
our eventual deaths, so we looked out,

and at each other, and into the bowl of a buttercup.

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Grief

Tonight, I am desperate to ride a train,
past banks of snow, through tunnels of fir.
Make it Poland or Siberia, let dusk
mute contrast, distort tree and rock. I need
to glimpse the shadow of a wolf, a horse
rearing back, a man in tall black boots
leaning on his rifle. Where’s the dangerous
bridge, breathless height and water?
Tracks scrape and jar. Grant me shrieking
inside curves. Make it stunning,
fatefully cold, something I can
understand. Inside, patches of melted
snow darken the aisle carpet, scarves
curl on empty seats like bands of napping
ferrets. The passengers are cheek
to shoulder, chin to chest, a slack bottom
lip. Now, make my eyes connect my heart
to the impossibility of a moon.

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Hallucinations 

You told me there were other people living
in our apartment, that you had been hallucinating
for a year. And all that time, I felt we were so alone.

I am almost far away now. Distance is calculated
with time. I try not to be haunted by your reality.
I try not to believe everything you say.

All the peanut butter eaten. All the coffee. All the books.
All the fights over nothing. All the creamer. All the ink.
The pencil changed your life. You said that doctor

was the only one to suggest something useful. No stroke
too permanent. Even the blue marks you left on my body
disappeared. Who did you think I was? I didn’t know

you either. Tonight, the moon was a torn nail tossed
to empty sky. I heard the songs but did not sing.
I watched all the lights turn green.

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Alison Harney lives in Atlanta, GA, with her family, and earned an MFA in poetry from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her poems have appeared in journals including The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, The Iowa Review, The Southeast Review, and Adanna. She is an award-winning PEN prison writing mentor and created Writing Room ATL.

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