Line of Descent
Against the backdark, bright
riband flickers of heat lightning. Nearer
hills begin to show, to come clear
as a hard, detached
and glimmering brim
against light lifting there. And here, pitched over
the braided arroyo choked with debris,
a tent, its wan, cakey,
road-rut color. On the front stake, two
green dragonflies, riding each other, pause,
Look! cries the boy, running, the father behind him
running too—
and the canyon opening
out in front of them its magisterial consequence, cramming
vertiginous air down its throat—
to snatch him
from the scarp.
Copyright Credit: Forrest Gander, “Line of Descent” from Torn Awake. Copyright © 1996 by Forrest Gander. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Source: Torn Awake (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1996)