Christopher Locke
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Late Fall, Vermont ; Looking for Foliage
On Hogback mountain, we roamed
with tourists and blinked
at the wide hammering of sky
impossible above the trees faded
to rust and bone. I was disappointed,
but you said the landscape was enough.
I didn’t know
that suicide's lusty promise
grew less intoxicating
in the thin mountain air.
Chicago had been rubbing you
away with its gray shoulders and drunks
explaining themselves to sidewalks.
And the subway steam had become a veil
of hidden messages you tried
to decipher, struggling to read
its gothic breath as it coiled
about your fire escape
at midnight. By dawn, your desire
to die became a phantom bird
you could not possess.
We climbed to the highest point
and looked further, unsure
where Vermont ended
and New York began.
Next to a briny dumpster,
asters shook in the cool air,
their crowns defiantly purple.
I thought of that poem by Kinnell
as you snapped an aster
free, but said nothing, knowing
silence is another way to grieve.
When we hiked down,
what leaves there were
spun harmlessly from beneath
passing cars and clung wet
to our shoes. One yellow leaf
surprised your leather jacket.
Brilliant against your chest ,
it burned with its memory of light .
Christopher Locke was born in Laconia, NH in 1968. He received his MFA from Goddard College in 1997 and currently serves as the Academic Director of Shortridge Academy, a school for troubled teens in Milton, NH. Poems have appeared widely in print including such journals as Atlanta Review, Chattahoochee Review, Connecticut Review, Descant (Canada), Georgetown Review, Literary Review, NFG (Canada), Rattle, The Southeast Review, The Sun, Tears in the Fence (UK), Willow Review and The Worcester Review and on-line in Can We Have Our Ball Back?, Exquisite Corpse, Pedestal Magazine, Pif, Red River Review and many others. Chris has received a Grant in poetry from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and Poetry Fellowships from Fundacion Valparaiso (Spain) and OBRAS Artist Center (Portugal). He was a Finalist in the New Issues Press Poetry Prize and Salmon Run Press National Poetry Book Award (Co-Sponsored by the Academy of American Poets). The chapbooks How to Burn (Adastra Press--1995) and Slipping Under Diamond Light (Clamp Down Press--2002) are currently available.
