My legs ungodly sore, stiff in plastic manacles,
face blown raw by wind, snot frozen,
I was done skiing,
but couldn’t sell that to my father
who had bought the lift ticket,
spent the day training me,
urged me just once more up the lift.

It was night then, and I sat still,
dangling my weighted feet
over a backlit void where winter hush
had filled the spaces the day skiers left.

On the last ride down
I didn’t fall in love with skiing,
but there was a hill
I’d ignored in the daylight,

Curving long and slow
down through wicked woods
where the trees clawed the sky and stretched
to rattle their bones and whisper
of secrets under the snow.

A single sharp spotlight
caught flakes falling
through mausoleum darkness,
keeping silence for the earth they buried.

I rode three more times
trying to see it again.

Ross Holmes lives in St. Paul with his wife and two cats. He has an MFA from Hamline University, and his work has previously appeared in Liminality, Flash Fiction Magazine, and rock, paper, scissors.