While we hiked through ferns and mist, bees built a nest in our tidy happiness back home, industrious as a pulse gone wrong behind the kitchen wall. I’d said no to a rope bridge but this one was made of chains and there you were, already waving, near the other side. Don’t look, don’t look, oh don’t look down! The rental car key slipped from your torn pocket and landed, too far below, like a star, like a promise twinkling on the moss. It was hard to enjoy our picnic of glazed donuts after that.

Bio: Kathleen McGookey