The Author As Man Climbing Recreationally Who’s Unseen Across The Canyon As He Witnesses The Avalanche In Cliffhanger

By Keith Montesano / Issue 6

After the film by Renny Harlin

Because the snow is falling, because I am here & falling,

& listening, I see them, early, too early, before the man

takes the plunge from the mountain’s edge. I hear gunfire

before the avalanche, before I hope no one knows I’m here.

There’s just air now, & snow, the failing to not look down

while, hooked in, I can’t do anymore. Dear God,

I’ve given you nothing & I know this. Keep me safe. Shatter me

like stars, like light through hailstorms, & I’ll hold on.

The guns fire & I wait, wait for them to see me here—blood-ripe

knuckles gripped—for everyone there to spot me, cowering

in some kind of prayer, for stability, a pausing of spent muscles

& life to hand me the pass to be afraid now. Because I am.

And I’ve always been. The snow keeps falling & I’m safe again

among this foothold, this slipping, this peace now.

Keith Montesano is the author of the poetry collection Ghost Lights (Dream Horse Press, 2010). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Quarterly West, Third Coast, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Blackbird, Mid-American Review, Ninth Letter, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. He currently lives with his wife in New York, where he is a PhD Candidate in English and creative writing at Binghamton University.