You don’t want to park at the end of the trail where glass is smashed upon the pavement
twinkling like the presents you wish you could afford, but there is no point in parking in the
islands between the lanes where the New Mexican drivers try to stay within the lines. Up here
the air sparkles a bit too much, gets into your lungs but puffs out like glitter.
You don’t want to walk to the second duck pond, or even the first one, but the woman
you might love said she’d be waiting in the blind. You picture her now, her hair blending in with
the dying grasses while the oily black ducks dive beneath the surface of the water. They make
other-earthly noises as they fly overhead.
You walk by the tree where a man was nailed to the trunk through the backs of his hands.
He had just gotten off work and was still carrying his briefcase when he decided to walk between
the tall white cottonwoods. Rio Grande cottonwoods have been growing in the Bosque for more
than a million years. The path was between the main gravel trail and the river. You saw his
hands in the newspapers, and yeah, there were two black holes the size of pupils in the hearts of
his palms. They called themselves ‘Bosque Zombies,’ he was quoted as saying.
You walk up a short hill to where the water almost meets your shoe. The black diving
ducks are pochards, sea ducks that made their way South in the fall. ‘Pochard’ sounds like a bad
word, she’d said, the bruises on her thighs yellow in the middle like split peaches.
In the blind is the shadow of a woman. A group of young men come around the pond
from behind. Their hoods are up. They are silent. A pale middle-aged woman walks among
them, in the middle, and she looks scared. She gives you a Wal-Mart smile. The woman you
thought you loved might or might not be in the blind. Give me everything you have, she might
say, and you will lift your palms to the sky.
Becca Yenser has an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University. They are the author of the chapbook Too High and Too Blue In New Mexico (Dancing Girl Press, 2018). Their writing appears in Hobart, The Nervous Breakdown, Heavy Feather Review, Madcap Review, and elsewhere. Grief Lottery, their creative nonfiction flash collection, is forthcoming from ELJ Editions in December 2021. Find them on Twitter @beccayenser.
Lost Balloon 