The Shortcut

The power line is a dead snake

hissing in the middle of the road.

I take the gate, the rusted hinge

moaning against the dark.

A pebble is a hot coal in my boot.

I lean against a granite slab,

my palm flat on the name of a man

who died in nineteen-forty-four.

The earth trembles under my heels—

a freight train three miles out,

grinding through the wet cedar needles.

The iron fence smells like old blood

and the slow, heavy rot of the rain.