hiking down to meet my family
Bella Coles


the grand canyon is six thousand feet deep
    if you looked down
       nothing but a sea of red
and my mother
crafting a future in her cracked hands
                she was a painter,
maybe my father wanted to know
what made her think she could sculpt


colors that only seem to rust
at the beach
    i think my mother was too in love with the ocean
        my father the desert
when her art became less abstract,
        she created from dreams in sedona again

how do you fabricate a
        family in
    the flesh of a clenched fist


when i tried to bake mine in the
heat of 2011
    glided into fog
ash out the deck of a cabin
            we were nowhere in august,
reaching into the ground,
trying to mold us back together.


←     →