10.3.2025

PINK MOUNTAIN

Photo: Wei Zeng

Joe Creedon (3 October 1954–29 November 1991)

When Joe filled me in on his big plan
to take off for the desert
and spend the days painting vistas of
red rocks, his eyes overflowed
with the marine light that can suffuse
some people as they become
translucent in their long dying. I
hadn’t learned yet to discern
such light. I thought my job was to talk
sense in his hospital room,
his last, with its view of Mount Rainier.

Later my mother called out
to strangers queuing up for a train,
and I knew enough to say
I can’t see them but I know you can.

Late September. Joe had ten
weeks. Seventy times we could have watched
that mountain turn every shade
of desert with the sun going down.

---

NOTE: Originally published in Rattle no. 81, spring 2020.