Souvenir

A Journal

"I'm going to come back to West Virginia when this is over. There's something ancient and deeply-rooted in my soul. I like to think that I have left my ghost up one of those hollows, and I'll never really be able to leave for good until I find it. And I don't want to look for it, because I might find it and have to leave".----Breece D'J Pancake, in a letter to his mother. 

Rachel Mindell 


Dear attention span,

we were standing 
around the fire 
but you sat 
on the dirt 
and wouldn’t 
stop texting. 
I wonder, 
wander.
My skull’s 
liminality
nets a loose 
cage and 
your binds 
are blinding. 
C’mon then 
let’s get down 
on real brass, 
pull time’s belly 
back and grip 
for spine. 
Let’s sink 
down in this 
forever dirt, 
really dig in 
our dying 
heels. Here 
are my hands, 
here my hiding. 
I hunker 
then shine 
high breams. 
I douse you 
in all the 
nothing I’ve 
saved up. At 
some point 
the road starts 
heading only 
downhill and 
apparently 
some folks 
dig that.

 

A ring I never remove links two families by way of a story whose intricacies exceed the scope of this description. My pointer finger's talisman was created in Bisbee, AZ circa 1970. Its thick band is silver and the detailing bears chunky dollops of gold. 

 

Rachel Mindell is an MFA candidate in poetry and MA candidate in English Literature at the University of Montana. Her chapbook, A Teardrop and a Bullet, will be released in 2015 by Dancing Girl Press. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Horse Less Review, DESTROYER, Anti-, Delirious Hem,
interrupture,
 Cream City Review  and elsewhere..