33
Equatorial
Kasey Elizabeth Johnson
Part of leaving this country
is returning. You take a bus east
to climb inside the jungle,
a canopy thick with leaves
and disappearing.
Orange mushrooms congregate
on a log, a waterfall gushes
into a pool, a fallen leaf,
like a wide-brimmed hat,
is placed on your head.
You climb and descend
a hillside of trunks,
face an overgrown road,
bend low to touch
a frond, the leaves turn away
shyly and some miles
from here, twenty hidden
people die. You fly home
before summer arrives,
it is almost winter again,
the person you loved
says goodbye for good
and we are, each of us,
one life, many small deaths.