Granite Basin

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
false hellebore holding 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.