On the Mountain
Light stalks the trail and leaves
tiny bruises, one tree after the other.
Before the hike, I drink Coke Zero.
I wear black in solidarity.
I am wickedly wrinkled.
I am laughter
face-down on the ridge.
How long can I exhale without disappearing?
I sing the Nettles song to no one
to everyone, to the bruised wizard
tree in her mysterious location. I am old,
so old I am a runt.
Soon I will climb onto the mare with the blue mane.
I adjust the light to shimmer enigmatic metaphors,
some brutal, some as kind as the Butterfly Nebula.
It’s all an endless loop like the used bookstore
beyond the mountain, like the hawk flying around
the nuthatch. I rely on this horizon like a kind of madness,
a cold language, a grove of privacy, an adjustment of light.
Appalachia, 2026
One Eye Open
Like the wild geese I sleep with one eye open.
I imagine our capable universe rolling her eyes.
I love to sleep among the geese
on the frozen shore where three are appointed
guardians of the gaggle. From here we hear
cries of the wild fish. In the periphery
God is skipping over ice. In the periphery
a snow-rabbit develops opposable thumbs,
the crow loses a wing and gains a beak of teeth.
I would like to be resilient among my people
even when they are balls of tumbleweed
rolling over the warming Earth.
I imagine I am in the moon’s cradle
beyond the curve of the planet,
tilting my fine-tuned ears, listening
for the turtle’s bark, the cry of the wild geese,
the sounds of children sleeping, one eye open.
Flame
The mountains
rise, pines
press up
against me
and begin
a slow
kiss.
My hair
on my skin
stands up,
a tiny flame
ignites
in the sponge
of each bone.
Kristy Snedden(she/her) is a trauma therapist, poet and artist. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. Her poetry appears in various on-line and print journals and anthologies, most recently storySouth, Contemporary Verse 2, and Door is a Jar. Her first poetry collection, That Broken Tooth, That Blue Tattoo, is forthcoming from Indolent Books in 2026. When not working or hiking in the foothills of Appalachia, she loves listening to her husband and her dog tell tall tales.
Light stalks the trail and leaves
tiny bruises, one tree after the other.
Before the hike, I drink Coke Zero.
I wear black in solidarity.
I am wickedly wrinkled.
I am laughter
face-down on the ridge.
How long can I exhale without disappearing?
I sing the Nettles song to no one
to everyone, to the bruised wizard
tree in her mysterious location. I am old,
so old I am a runt.
Soon I will climb onto the mare with the blue mane.
I adjust the light to shimmer enigmatic metaphors,
some brutal, some as kind as the Butterfly Nebula.
It’s all an endless loop like the used bookstore
beyond the mountain, like the hawk flying around
the nuthatch. I rely on this horizon like a kind of madness,
a cold language, a grove of privacy, an adjustment of light.
Appalachia, 2026
One Eye Open
Like the wild geese I sleep with one eye open.
I imagine our capable universe rolling her eyes.
I love to sleep among the geese
on the frozen shore where three are appointed
guardians of the gaggle. From here we hear
cries of the wild fish. In the periphery
God is skipping over ice. In the periphery
a snow-rabbit develops opposable thumbs,
the crow loses a wing and gains a beak of teeth.
I would like to be resilient among my people
even when they are balls of tumbleweed
rolling over the warming Earth.
I imagine I am in the moon’s cradle
beyond the curve of the planet,
tilting my fine-tuned ears, listening
for the turtle’s bark, the cry of the wild geese,
the sounds of children sleeping, one eye open.
Flame
The mountains
rise, pines
press up
against me
and begin
a slow
kiss.
My hair
on my skin
stands up,
a tiny flame
ignites
in the sponge
of each bone.
Kristy Snedden(she/her) is a trauma therapist, poet and artist. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. Her poetry appears in various on-line and print journals and anthologies, most recently storySouth, Contemporary Verse 2, and Door is a Jar. Her first poetry collection, That Broken Tooth, That Blue Tattoo, is forthcoming from Indolent Books in 2026. When not working or hiking in the foothills of Appalachia, she loves listening to her husband and her dog tell tall tales.
