I used to run up there on Perseverance
Trail when I lived in the apartment
on top of Gold Street where it met Basin
Road and all I had to do all day was
run or walk for miles in the rain
and try to think of nothing except
the false hellebore holding the droplets
on its pleated leaves in perfect
viscous spheres. It was early in June. The only
person I knew in the whole drenched town
had taught me that false hellebore
was poisonous to humans. It causes
the heart to slow, induces vertigo. I couldn’t
stop picturing how it would feel to chew
the leaves to stringy pulp and watch
the mountains go blurry and succumb
to the mists that always enveloped them,
until it was all dizzy and invisible, me
and the narrow trail above the gorge
through the illuminated valley. I wanted
my heart to go so slow no creature
could discern its beating. Instead, I just
kept running, tried to make it every day
all the way to the washout without stopping,
ran faster so the hellebore became
so smeared and green in my peripheral
vision it glowed. I hated having to live
every moment in real time, always
seeing with utter clarity. I hated letting
every single leaf of that abundant
verdant poison go. Only the bears ate it.