nube

that Baltimore oriole is outside the apartment window again

do you know how many orange peels my mother nailed to trees

to coax, to plead, to beg one of those birds to show?

they say no one found morel mushrooms this year, 

and maybe we should be questioning what that means,

that my father—and every other collector—went out into the woods

returned empty-handed, bucket bottoms shining white

instead of morels or Baltimore orioles, my parents got millipedes

black, red, and little legs all curling around each other in the yard

on Google images, I saw a picture of a rainy mountain forest

the sight striking me somewhere between the eyes, burrowing

into a place deep beneath the ice blocks of full bodied memories

I don’t want to know anymore, don’t want to thaw and find out 

how they came to be buried so intentionally in freezing conditions

but that picture, with its green slopes and gray mist, it made

it made my lungs pause, my stomach twist

no tears, no gap between the years, just right there

a rental car, narrow roads, a cloud forest, and Spanish

him, complaining about ears popping

and me, thinking on repeat: nube, nube, nube

Google maps in my hands, navigating, though I was told to be silent

I was told to be quiet, that raised-voice request to my ginger take-this-left

I don’t have the courage to take an ice pick to the rest of that memory

don’t know how to conceal such monuments of ice

when the chill chases, it follows