Alison Hicks

Bushwack

No trail. A compass reading.
We can’t walk a straight line. Blowdowns
force us into detours, we climb
over massive trunks, the stream meanders.
Not clear how the topo aligns
with rises and valleys. We could be
anywhere, do not have the vision
of the raptor banking above.

The land shifts and groans over time,
turning in sleep. It doesn’t tell
its dreams, a language we can’t decipher,
intimate as we are, crawling through underbrush,
scaling boulders in the dry creekbed.

We might remember when we arrive,
wherever that is: raw feet, scraped knees, thirst.
What traces have we left?
Should we blaze the trail, melt into trees?
Feel them, even now, watching us.

Alison Hicks was awarded the 2021 Birdy Prize from Meadowlark Press for Knowing Is a Branching Trail. A new collection, Homing, is forthcoming from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in November, 2024. Her work has appeared in Eclipse, Gargoyle, Permafrost, and Poet Lore. She was finalist for the 2021 Beullah Rose prize from Smartish Pace, an Editor’s Choice selection for the 2024 Philadelphia Stories National Poetry Prize, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Green Hills Literary Lantern, Quartet Journal, and Nude Bruce Review. She is founder of Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio, which offers community-based writing workshops.