I imagine you must have laughed when you heard how hopelessly lost I was in the middle of the night in the Del Monte Forest last weekend because you of all people know how rarely I lose my way and how important it is for me to know where I am and where I am going a personality trait that easily shifts from character strength to character flaw and how uncomfortable I would be alone in my car in that darkness my GPS unable to make sense of the circling streets that curved out and around and back like a basketful of snakes tunneling into darkness a labyrinth of Monterey pines shouldering their way into the night air their columns of bark spearing straight into the void all starlight all moonlight obliterated by dense needled limbs and I know you will roll your eyes when I tell you there was something archetypal something shadowy and fundamental moving in me not because I was in the dark although that was frightening enough but because I was lost in the dark my hands turning the steering wheel from the black asphalt of one street into the dark onyx of another it did not matter that in eight hours the sun would rise again nor that if I wanted I could turn down one of the driveways that disappeared into the pines to search for a house with a light in its window and knock on the door all that mattered was that I was lost wandering in a place of darkness and somewhere along the way the night had leaned forward into my car and stared into my eyes and its great mouth had opened and I had stepped in
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 5.
Steve McDonald has published two books and two chapbooks of poetry. His second book, Credo, was a finalist in the 2016 Brick Road Poetry Competition, and his second chapbook, Golden Fish / Dark Pond, won the 2014 Comstock Review Chapbook contest. His poetry has appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, North American Review, Boulevard, Rhino, Nimrod, Catamaran, The Atlanta Review, RATTLE, Best New Poets, and elsewhere, and it has received awards from Tupelo Press, Tiferet, Nimrod, and others.
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