AIRMAN BASIC COPE
Once, I could have made this tree into paper,
a bookmark, a letter, like the one I got today
that said you were coming home
but straight-backed, ironed into a line, dry and clean
as Colorado desert air. I remember when you were hiding,
had buried yourself in the ground,
created a foxhole to sleep under, not in,
because holes aren’t always places for hiding.
When you come back, you will bring me an almond blossom,
but forget my name, call me
Hokdidasha—Mountain Lion—the hunter,
the keeper of the North, the swept, barren place.
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LAUREL JONES is a TA at UNCW living in Wilmington, NC. Jones has been published in the Sequoya Review, Poetry Miscellany, and has an online chapbook of poems, The Tilt of the World.