In the Ural Mountains a Woman With No Tongue
        after the Dyatlov Pass Incident

found under four feet of snow, as though
what she had already lost was not enough

to call silence. If you think this is about grief,
it's not. It's about what happens to those left

behind on a mountain named for the dead.
These are not the first peaks I've wanted

to interrogate. How do they possess
the innocent, convince them to undress,

ribbon a tent from the inside
and run, burdened by fear, for the treeline?

No one thinks toeprints hastily pitted
in the snow say anything about longevity.

Oh, the arrogance of humans, what we can't know,
the hows

and whys, the way we pull truth's lips
close and insist on tasting the secrets they keep.

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Copyright © 2019 Megan Arlett All rights reserved
from Lake Effect
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission