Disappearance Poem by Caroline Misner

The hills have drown in olive drab
like the soldiers spawned from this land,
and bristle beneath a crown of trees
and thrust their arteries into the spongy earth.

The sun has blown its seed and bloated
by the colourless milk-bottle clouds.
Not an insect or hawk flies near;
this is my opportunity to disappear

into the misty path that zigzags down
the mountainside. There’s always one
last snow that smothers the spring,
and here it comes to cloak the woods.

They have nothing to hide, waiting
for the grey rains of April that cleave
the blossoms from their stems. It’s not me
grinning sickly toward the sky.

I could bury myself beneath this dank earth,
dun as a workhouse mule. It is not Easter
here, in the core of this loam
where nothing wakes and nothing is reborn.