It was the steepest hill
Ever I knew.

Named for my great, great
Grandparents,
The Lords,
She was family,
Especially when snow fell in winter.
Not only neighborhood kids,
Adults too sled her.
Such was her reputation
That we had to endure the arrival of
An occasional station wagon
Full of thrill seeking townies
With their shiny, new
Department store sleds.

She refused to don an asphalt coat
That steep she was.
Coats of gravel just pooled at her feet
So steep she was.

One sunny, summer day
Cousin Mel and I stood
High upon her summit.
His legs straddled my beloved
Three speed bike
Fully equipped with hand brakes,
Narrow rims,
And leather saddle.

I gripped the bare steel bars
Of an old wreck borrowed.
No brakes? said I.
No brakes! we shouted to seal the deal.
Even in the foolish loose life of youth
I was an all in kind of guy.

Oh we flew!
Flesh and steel as one,
We flew!

In my young life,
Not in a car,
It was the fastest I had ever moved,
……For twenty seconds.

It was pure joy,
……For twenty seconds.

Then her feet of pooled gravel
Seized my front wheel and
Shook it the way my dog Lucy
Killed garter snakes,
Seizing tails in her mouth
And whipsawing the creatures with
Shakes of her head so violent
Their heads parted bodies.

Time stopped.
I lay dead.
Is not complete cessation of breath
……Death?

At last time did return,
Kept measure of
My drumming pain.

So as well did breath return,
Shallow, weak and wanting,
Unable yet to loose a scream.

My sight returned,
First black, then grey,
Then technicolor.
I saw Mel’s face so
White with fright.

Awareness returned,
As did feeling in my
Skewed and skewered limbs,
All atingle and in tangles
In my bier of broken brambles.

Movement returned,
Mel gave me a hand,
Tugging at my body,
Helping me to stand.
It seemed to take forever,
Even working together,
To free that stupid bike.

I lifted up my t-shirt,
Pulled it free
Of blood and dirt.
Those bare steel bars
With a slash made a ****,
Ripping flesh from my chest
Clear down to my belly.

We walked.
My front wheel was as strangely twisted as
My fifth grade school teacher
Who liked to push a hand down the back of my pants.

Strolling our steel steeds homeward,
Passing neighbor’s porches,
I was seized by a sense of surreal dread.
I saw one woman press hands to her head.
One mother jumped
Clear out of her seat,
Her mouth fell gaping,
Her gossip fell silent
Down at her feet.

My own mother ran into the street,
Seized me roughly by both arms,
Panic poured stinking from her pores
Like the sweat of one gripped
In the throes of malaria.

Even I was startled by my first look in a mirror.
It was clear I entered those vines headfirst,
Encountered numerous thorns,
Which tore a multitude of cuts
All about my face and scalp,
Areas rich in capillaries whose
Only purpose seems to be to bleed,
Then maybe bleed some more.
There had been enough red rivulets
That one could be excused for thinking
I had somehow survived
An **** of bloodletting.

But dang, my belly sure hurt!

Childhood chills
sledding down hills
adrenaline adventure
barrel to the bottom
sensation celebration
reluctant realization
arduous climb back
ascending again
legs languid
exhausting escalator
planting a flag at the peak
finding breath in fresh air
inspecting the landscape
made for more
hills become mountains
formula for faster
avalanche astronaut
garnering Gs
the bottom bottoms out
cavernous canyon
can’t climb back
ground too uneasy
shifting environment
hazards harass
some keep sledding.

Just sledding.
Nothing 'special'
except the smile on your face;
enchanting.

There was a Winter’s chill
But we still had fun
Sledding down the hill
In the clear Winter sun

It was a cold day of play
Mittens stuck to the sleds
A frantic snowball fray
With woolen caps on our heads

And we all slipped and slid
Never really knowing
How great it was being a kid
In our yard, as it was snowing

But then as we grew older
Winter never seemed the same
Each year grew a little colder
Reliving our childhood game

By Kirke Wise

The first publication of this poem was in the Winter 2019 edition of The Watershed Journal

Flurries fall onto the window
As white fills the street
With a clean white sheet of snow
The phone rings
Schools have been cancelled
Call up my friends
“Let’s go down the BIG sled hill”
We meet up around 3PM
Where no little kids around to ruin our day
We pack snow to make a ramp
And drag our sleds up to the top
As we race down the sled hill one by one
Faster than light
Speed, I am speed
Feeling the freeze and staring at the jump ahead
Until we feel an elevation
Then we are sent flying high
Soaring faster than planes in the sky
Until we land
Hard landing but we land
Every laugh, every giggle fuels are adrenaline
As we take on the ramp
And build it up and build it up
Until we get the biggest jump
And once we get tired of that
We race down the hill
Trying to knock each other off to win
So we can go the finals
And be crowned a sled champion
In our fake world
And we rinse and repeat the same formula
Our creative minds wonder
Until it turns dark
Where our mothers come to pick us up at 8
Where we get hot chocolate at McDonalds
And head back to someone's house
Where pizza and drinks await
Where we go downstairs and play video games
And talk about girls all night
And sleepover and stay up til late
Still playing games
Having deep talks
Life, sports, girls, parents, etc.
Truth or Dare, What are the odds
Until we start to feel tired
And pass out and start dreaming
On the next snowfall
Under the white blanket