Editor’s Choice

Curse of the logger’s daughter

    by M.E. Hope

She can’t see the forest for the timber.

In dreams chainsaws and trucks

are lullaby, diesel and sawdust

more fragrant memory than

lilac or honeysuckle. Boys

who weren’t cowboys were logger’s

sons. Boys who were neither

weren’t worth your time. A four a.m.

wake up call was good and days

that end dusted in powder finer

than talc, grease under your nails

and pine pitch in your hair

were the only days needed.

She remembered

the chipmunk her Uncle Lowell

caught up near Gum Boot, how

he opened the cage to show all

the kids, gathered in the yard,

and it bit into his hand.

Blood ran down his thumb

and he laughed, telling

the creature don’t worry I’ll

get you back in the woods

tomorrow.  She wondered

if its little heart hurt all night

like hers does when she

passes mountains dark with pine.

© 2014  M.E. Hope

M.E. Hope currently lives, and writes, in Belgium.  A recipient of a Fishtrap Fellowship, Playa Residency and Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission she spends her days watching the amazing Belgian Blue (Blanc Bleu Belge) cattle and searching for the perfect cheese.