on the desert in seconds.
I’ve seen flash floods before.
But I’ve never seen one
like this.
The waters
I have to remind myself
the water’s not alive;
it won’t reach up
with slender, flowing fingers
and take me,
pry me,
snatch me,
from this wall,
suck me down
into its
violently whirling,
tirelessly turbulent
mouth.
The fear,
the anxiety,
controls me,
is in every part of me,
as I cling
to this wall of stone.
What do you fear, Eleanor?
Dying.
Are you likely to die in this situation?
Yes.
WAITING
The water arrived
like a tsunami,
but it leaves
like bathwater
trickling down
a hair-clogged drain.
I hug the wall,
every muscle
tense and aching,
my body
one big ball
of pain.
I wait
and wait
and wait
as the water slowly,
painfully lowers,
getting drunk
by the eternally
thirsty ground.
I will it to drink
faster before I fall.
I wait for
seconds,
minutes,
hours,
days,
months,
years.
My muscles shake
with fatigue.
My vision blurs
with tears.
My heart pounds
with the full force
of having to watch
both my parents
torn apart.
SHAME
Self-condemnation
from unprocessed guilt and shame
is never helpful.
DAD’S HEIGHT
By the time the canyon is gray,
the water is finally low enough
for me to drop onto the outcropping.
I look down through a curtain of sweaty, damp hair,
already wishing I hadn’t taken out my ponytail,
and see the rock, the waters just beneath it
now flowing at a stroll rather than a sprint.
It’s about six feet down.
Dad’s height.
Because that’s how high he could lift me.
The pain and pressure in my chest grow
as if someone is punching my heart.
I have to climb down,
but I know before I even begin
it’s impossible.
Climbing down is nothing
like climbing up.
Plus, I have boots on,
and the wall below me is wet.
I don’t have any choice.
I can’t hang on to this wall another minute,
and I don’t have the strength to climb up
out of this canyon.
My heart pounds hard enough
to send tremors through my body,
make my fingers, hands, and arms shudder.
Lowering one unsteady boot
for a foothold below me,
I cry
because
I know
I’m about
to fall.
SLIPPING
My boot slips,
my fingers, hands, and arms
too weak to hang on.
Sliding down the wall,
slowing my fall with friction,
sanding skin off my
palms, forearms, and knees,
my body so filled with adrenaline,
I don’t yet feel the pain.
I hit the outcropping,
boots first,
and my feet slip out from under me.
My right hip, ribs, arm slam
against the rocky ledge,
my teeth knocking together,
biting my tongue.
I slide into the water,
and stop myself,
half my body in the water,
which is trying to pull me from the ledge.
I drag myself out,
my mouth filling with blood,
lie on my side, and pull
my legs up to my chest.
And now the pain comes.
It radiates
over my torn skin
like a fire,
barrels into my battered bones
like a fighter.
Blood drips
from my hands and knees and mouth
onto the rock.
It spreads like watercolors
on the wet stone.
THE SECOND TIME
I’ve lost my
backpack,
hoodie,
hair tie,
helmet,
harness,
gloves,
food,
water,
last person in my life.
I have nothing left.
Except my life.
That’s the second time in a single year
one of my parents put my life
before theirs.
SINKING
The canyon is dimming.
I need to get moving
before it gets too dark.
I need to find Dad.
It’s risky to walk in the desert
with no light at all.
There could be
snakes, scorpions, spiny cactuses.
I push myself up,
my arms shaking with the effort,
still worn out from clinging to the wall.
I lean over and look down
at the ground a few feet below,
puddles everywhere but no longer
enough water to flow.
I drag my legs around
and shove myself off the rock.
My boots sink deep into the dark
sludge like quicksand.
Too deep.
I’m stuck.
Stuck in this muck,
my muscles too fatigued
to pull out my boot.
I grasp my leg with both hands
and pull with all my strength.
My boot finally breaks free
with a loud sucking sound,
completely soaked in sludge.
I won’t be walking anywhere tonight,
so I climb back up on the rock.
Maybe Dad didn’t go too far.
I cry out for him,
hoping he’ll hear,
hoping he’ll call back.
I listen.
Nothing.
I’ll have to wait here
on this rock for now.
Just for now until Dad returns.
WHY?
I lie back on the rock
and watch as the silver sliver of sky
above me turns to black,
taking all light in the canyon with it.
There’s nothing to do
except let my mind wander
to places I don’t want to visit.
It’s always the same places.
Even here and now.
Why, why, why?
There has to be a reason why a person
would walk into a restaurant
and just start shooting.
I need to know the reason so desperately
that Dad sent me to Mary.
But Mary still hasn’t told me why.
And if there’s no why,
then I’m just small and powerless,
a single drop of water
in a raging river,
a single grain of sand
in a suffocating dust storm,
a single speck of palo verde pollen
floating on the dry desert breeze.
Unanchored.
Untethered.
Unpredictable.
Unable to see
what the future holds.
Unable to see
where I’ll land.
ONE RAGING RIVER
I badly need to know why right now. But no one is here to tell
me why, so I imagine it for myself. I remember those dark
mountains to the west. I picture rain running down the
sides of the mountains in hundreds of small streams,
which become tens of brooks, which become
a few creeks, which become one raging
river in a previously dry riverbed
that gradually deepens into
a narrow slot canyon.
One raging river
that washes
my father
away.
WHAT IF?
As though my mind
is made of metal,
it’s pulled by a magnet
to another place,
an unhelpful, unhealthy place.
It’s the place of what-ifs.
What if
I’d picked another restaurant?
What if
we’d sat at a different table?
What if
we’d gone for lunch instead of dinner?
What if
it wasn’t my birthday?
Then Mom would still be here.
Dad would still be here.
And I wouldn’t be here
alone
at the bottom of a dark canyon.
BREATHING
And so I am sitting on this
cold, wet rock in the dark
alone with my thoughts,
with the whys
and the what-ifs.
And I feel myself
falling deeper and deeper
into my anger, which spirals
like the brightening stars above me.
It’s a tornado turning,
a choppy sea churning,
a bone-dry desert burning
evermore out of control.
My heart pounds.
I want to scream.
Remember your breathing, Eleanor.
I cry out for Dad again,
funneling my anger, my breath,
into my voice.
My cries echo over and over
against the tall canyon walls,
following the path of the flood.
The path to Dad.
BUT
Dad’s a great swimmer,
but his leg.
Dad’s strong,
but those floodwaters
may be stronger.
Dad has his backpack,
but all that debris,
the water so filled
with sticks and stones
and sludge,
could tear it from
his body.
Dad knows how
to survive in the desert,
but he’s never
faced anything like this.
I know he’s out there
somewhere in the dark
of this canyon,
but is he still alive?
Yes.
He’s alive and he
knows where I am.
He’ll find me,
but I know he can’t
find me tonight
in the dark and the mud.
I lie back on the cold rock,
a trill floating back to me
from somewhere
down the canyon.
DAD!
TRILL
I sit up.
Listen.
It sounds like a whistle.
Dad is whistling for me.
Wait.
Did Dad bring a whistle?
The trill rings
through the canyon
again and again.
And then something
is trilling very close to me.
And then several somethings
are trilling all around me
like a screeching chorus.
Folding my legs up,
I press my forehead into my knees,
push my hands back through my hair,
and squeeze it tightly at my scalp.
It’s not Dad.
It’s the red-spotted toads,
digging themselves out
from under the soaked ground.
I lie down on my side
and clamp my hands over my ears
to try to block them out.
WIND
I know it must be at least midnight
because the toads finally quiet back down.
I lift my hands from my ears
and rub them over my chilled arms.
I remember camping with Mom and Dad
at the bottom of Canyon de Chelly,
how the winds blew at night.
I can still hear them
groaning against our tent walls.
The sound, almost deafening,
frightened me.
I thought it was monsters.
It’s just the wind, Nora,
Dad assured me, hugging me to him.
When the canyon walls cool at night
it causes the air to blow hard.
Don’t worry, sweetheart.
Nothing can hurt us down here.
The next morning our Diné guide told us,
The winds are part of the way
the canyon expresses siihasin,
harmony.
But all I feel right now is
disharmony.
Our Diné guide told us,
The canyon gives much to those
who would receive it.
That may be true of Canyon de Chelly,
but I don’t think this canyon
has anything to give me.
This canyon only takes away.
BURNING
The canyon winds pick up
and slice over me like an icicle.
My body starts
to shake uncontrollably.
My clothes are still damp,
and the wind is like winter.
For the 366th night in a row,
I wish my mom were here
to take me in her arms
and comfort me
and sing the song
she used to sing.
But she’s not.
So my mind goes back
to the last time
I saw her alive,
how she wished me
Happy birthday, sweetheart,
and the guitarist played a song
while I ate fried ice cream
with a bright blue candle
burning.
FLAME
Another mom was there.
Sofía Moreno,
just a regular mom,
sitting in the booth next to ours.
I remember how she and her two little boys
had clapped when the server
brought out their fajitas,
how she’d pulled her kids to her
to keep them from touching
the flame.
And so my thoughts keep
circling back to
fire.
DRIFTING
With nothing but
whys and what-ifs
and burning memories
and freezing winds
to keep me company,
my eyes start to feel as heavy
as the boulders the flood
washed away like pebbles.
How
can I
possibly sleep
when I’m so cold?
How
can I
possibly sleep?
&nb
sp; How
can I?
How…
NIGHTMARE
First come the tremendous
booms.
My mother, singing to me seconds ago,
is shoving me under the table
so frantically, so desperately,
that I bash my head on the edge
and her fingers leave bruises on my body.
What is happening?
Then more
booms
and Mom is covered in
blood.
Dad is screaming, screaming, screaming,
and there are more
booms
and more
blood.
I squeeze my eyes shut
as I press my cheek to Mom’s knee,
then I force my eyes open
and turn my head, smearing her blood
across my face.
I see his lower half
from under the table:
enormous camouflaged
legs and boots.
I see the tip of his weapon and then him,
slowly, gradually, deliberately
bending over to find me
under the table.
I am frozen,
can’t move,
can’t scream,
can’t breathe,
can’t think anything but
I am going to die.
This time he’ll get to me
before the
blur of brown legs.
Sofía Moreno’s legs.
When she did what she did.
REBUILD
The yipping of coyotes above
startles me awake on this hard rock,
my body filled with tremors,
every nerve shooting pain.
I know I shouldn’t.
I know I’m not supposed to,
but I won’t let him near me.
So I build my wall,
and I lay
my shame
and brick