Lisa Low—BLACK AS A HEARSE I PUT ON MY SKATES

One leap and I was over the hill,

my skates and my arms shooting like pistons,

on a lake that ran into a river

and a river that ran beside trees.

I knew then I was not going back.

Not for the airplane. Not for the phone calls.

Not for the hands that waved, nor the voices

that called in the deepening distance.

The snow pointing to a cleft before me,

my scarf whipping and my body bent double,

my soul jetting out like blood for the tracks,

I was heading for the highway, hurtling

like a globe toward something hard, the best

bet, something cold as New England rock,

to slam my boxed-in body into.

Lisa Low

Lisa Low’s essays, book reviews, and interviews have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, The Boston Review, The Tupelo Quarterly, and The Adroit Journal. Her poetry has appeared in many literary journals, among them Valparaiso Poetry Review, Phoebe, Pennsylvania English, American Journal of Poetry, Delmarva Review, and Tusculum Review.