An afternoon of bright needles on our faces. The frozen lake, the tree-dark shoreline. Our hiking poles tapped the ice on the trail, boots crunching. A stop in a clearing, a repeated hum against my body like the cry of a tiny animal, a message arriving in snow and silence. I returned the words from nearly two thousand miles away to my pocket. We were quiet for a while, shouldered our poles and held gloved hands tight on the wide trail. Pitch pine and cedar, holly and oak.

hiking in the snow
the news of his cancer
cold in my pocket

(First published in Bracken #13, June 2025. Thanks to the editors.)