“The Zany Trail” by Shaun Anthony McMichael

The Zany Trail

When you were around three, we noticed
you could go down a different trail
with tie-dyed leaves on the big leaf maples, sun breaks
bright enough to break
your eyes into sapphires, plunge pools
cold enough to fill your little boy body with quaking
colors that chattered your teeth and sent your fingers
into a flicking, flexing fury as if hanging you off
a cliff, feeling the fullest spectrum of light. We couldn’t
go with you down this trail. You no longer
came when I called you, even when I yelled. You
come back on your own time. The rainbow  
boughs of your trails’ trees fall, the trunks buckling,
the streams dry into trickles you try to refill with your tears
and in your world, as I can’t see and have
no body, I have to lead you blind and all spirit
to a tree break
where you can speak a valley full
of heaven with your slightest
syllable and peel back the vale between
our separate paths with one of your squeals
of delight.
Silences pass easily
and stillness
does not sicken the way it did before
I opened the door of my heart’s house to let in
your laughter and flap-happy back and forths which froth me over
with want to hold down your arms, though I know you’ll fly
anyway. So I keep my hands at my sides, letting
the falsely fêted virtues of my forest fall along with the walls
between us, until we’re free again to walk trails, zany, drab
dry, difficult, or dripping. Our paths
converging
for as long
as the sun butters
my brows and my brain
stays breaded and beyond
the dread of former or future times’
talons that may separate your dove-soft hands
from mine, callous, clawed, but open-palmed
from my days spent walking with you.

Shaun Anthony McMichael

Since 2007, Shaun Anthony McMichael has taught writing to students from around the world, in classrooms, juvenile detention halls, mental health treatment centers, and homeless youth drop-in spots throughout the Seattle area. Over 90 of his poems, short stories, and reviews have appeared in literary magazines, online, and in print, including the forthcoming short story collection, The Wild Familiar (CJ Press, 2024). He lives in Seattle with his wife and son. Anxiety and depression, neurodivergence, and chronic pain intersect daily with his family life. Visit him at his website shaunanthonymcmichael.com.

Headshot: Robert Forehand

Photo Credit: Staff