Passo della Morte

Because we must hide by day
and travel at night, darkness hinders.
The narrow stony trail offers options:
turned ankles, torn skin, or precipice
that takes us sliding down the mountain,
an avalanche of self, death’s prospect.
No one’s ever eager for exile;
we’re just trying to save ourselves,
our families, a few belongings
we used to think were precious.

The way we take may be steep—
in these mountains that’s never a metaphor—
soon enough we learn it is an unburdening 
of all we thought was necessary, 
an education in physical need: shoes 
more critical than underwear, knowing 
the least cut may go septic, a child’s wail 
betray us to predators or enemies. 

One by one we let things go, abandoned
in shallow caves with other people’s
remnants, plastic bags and t-shirts,
books, candlesticks, so much trash after all—
even our skins can barely hold what
we need. We arrive shriven, numb as feldspar, 
having walked for so long. Let the path
northward gleam for us somehow,
hope’s faint reminder here, where there
are never any promises.




after “Northern Stars” 2023 (Celestino Marco Cavalli)
https://www.phest.info/celestino-marco-cavalli




Ann E. Michael lives in eastern Pennsylvania. Her latest poetry collection (2024) is Abundance/Diminishment. Her work has appeared in Ninth Letter, One Art, Ekphrasis Review, WordPeace, and many others, as well as in numerous anthologies, six chapbooks, and two previous collections. She chronicles her writing, reading, and garden on a long-running blog at www.annemichael.blog