The Hill

Brynn Gardner

Sometimes when we’re driving out 
in the light of the spotted, dried hills
we round a corner, go running down the 
nerves branching off the Devil’s 
Backbone and look up at a mound 
of dirt and rock and soil backlit by 
evening---all oranges and pinks ramming 
horns against the blues of the sky
behind us---and we say that could be 
a mountain. Close your eyes; with the dark
brushstrokes of stone against your
eyelids, that could be a mountain.
And if it were a mountain would 
the air cool? Would the drought end? 
Or would the net of stars when 
the day ends sink beneath a wave 
of clouds and would the cold current 
pull at our feet like we never thought it 
could? And we turn towards the slope and 
our old car rattles and groans up and 
up and up the mountain until the 
evening light slips into the dazzling
dress of night and it is a hill again.

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