crestline, ca

mom wakes me up. let's go, she shakes,

to the cabin. the pebbly strawberries are ripe down the hill.

sledding's good. the dry pine needles three feet thick.

i swear we send up smoke.

halfway down, the neighbor kids have dug

a cavern into ground, twenty feet wide and six feet deep,

tall bottles pressed as trophies into the soft dirt at the side

i tumble in and stare up & out at half sky

if i needed to

it would be good to live like this.

summer; my dad catches the june bug

with bare hands, tries on

fifties fatherhood,

then his short-shorts from the seventies.

july and  me on the long swing reading little women, with

jo amy beth meg coated in dust

from the scuffling of my feet making peace.

last year, a brown bear nudged the door open,

stood up to my grandma in her apron

"bonnie, stay in the bathroom," grandma called to my aunt,

and with all of the self-possession gained

from growing up on a great depression kansas

farm, shooed the bear out like it was one of six sisters.

winter: the time there was no food in the cabin and we

were too tired to go out. we ate like survivors of a thorough disaster. 

these places we retreat to.

at night, in the room at the top of the stairs, the raccoons

make their noises, beamed lamp eyes in.

we watch them watch us, two families perched

for safety in the place

that belongs to coyotes.