Dead Woman Hollow is a hiking trail in Pennsylvania. In 1988, a woman named Rebecca Wight was murdered there.
The morning of the 4th, I set out to cross
Dead Woman Hollow, a narrow tunnel of
gray-greens and damp, deep browns. July rain had swollen
the bones of the trees, their soft, white roots,
scraped bare, lay like scattered ribs.
My old Nalgene sloshed at my side
all through the day-long trek: half-filled, quarter-filled,
then quiet. When I stopped to rest, I thought of
the woman killed in those woods,
then I thought of myself, alone.
Near dusk, I reached the end: a bleach-blonde grandma
ushered me into her plywood hostel, flicked
her lipstick-stained cigarette at a room lined with
bunk beds holding hikers’ packs and boots, heavy
with the scent of men.
I sighed, sat down on the communal couch next to a young jock,
his red-rimmed eyes reflecting the bright designs of
Scorcese’s Goodfellas playing on a small TV.
I had watched it as a kid, recalled only splattered red
and a man smiling, telling a woman to
go look at something over there, back there—then the fear
on her face once she understands that the gesture is a trap.
Minutes crept. I sank into a sofa cushion, spotted a web
in the window starred with dark husks. But where is the spider?
I searched for her until my muscles went slack.
Clink! I jerked awake. An empty bottle of SoCo had fallen
against another of Crown. The clear sound rang out
like a clap. I turned and saw myself cut up
in the young man’s eyes: thighs, neck, breasts. Quiet.
He lunged; I leapt off the couch, shot through
the room, smooth as a fish or an electric current.
All night, alone, I drifted under flickers of light
at the edge of the Hollow, felt fireworks burst heavy
above my head, felt the smoke enter and enter my body,
the sky showering the ground with red, red, red.