We were
climbing up
for days then we were
climbing down
Sonny walked ahead
on the steep path I felt more sure-footed
with him in the lead I watched as he slowly
picked his way over the slick rocks
I watched as he lost his footing but quickly
caught himself the rocks covered
with a thin coat
of water jewel-like
full of solid
promise
leading us to a waterfall
or a stream
or perhaps a large bed
of water as we made
our way down I began to dream
and saw a young boy
run across a freshly-
mowed field dry to the bone when suddenly Sonny
began to slip it was too steep
he couldn't catch
his balance and I couldn't change
what was happening
as his weight started to buckle into his knees
and he slid from my view
caught in the heavens I could not find
him anywhere
he did not
answer my calls
I was terrified
to keep going
so began to hike
over to the side and into the woods
to pick my way
down to him
through the dark trees
I woke up and could not
see at first
then there
he was
still playing
in the room
his bare feet
buried in the rug
and the breaking news
in all the hours
and all the days
of the week
Samuel Ace is a trans and genderqueer poet and sound artist. He is the author of several books, including Our Weather Our Sea (Black Radish Books, 2019) and Meet Me There: Normal Sex & Home in three days. Don’t wash. (Belladonna* Germinal Texts, 2019). He is the recipient of the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund Award in Poetry and the Firecracker Alternative Book Award, as well as a Lambda Literary Award and National Poetry Series finalist. His work has been widely anthologized and has appeared in or is forthcoming from Poetry, Aufgabe, Fence, The Atlas Review, Black Clock, Mandorla, Versal, The Collagist, Posit, Vinyl, We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics, Troubling the Line: Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, Best American Experimental Poetry, and many other publications. He has recently relocated to Atlanta where he lives with his spouse and their new baby.