LAST TRAIL /// Ellen Lager

COMIC

///Lindsey Riggs

LAST TRAIL

///Ellen Lager

She’s explored hundreds of trails through these woods tracing the edge of nightfall, but this one is untracked.

Lured by light— crystal stars of the Big Dipper over the lake like luminaries hastening her egress, flickering their welcoming lamplight— her passage heightened by the North Star—

the duet hooting of owls across the expanse of water. What summons her is the obsidian fringe of pines bending shadows,

impermanent histories of other companions bound in kernels of memory. A canine’s life never long enough.

Behind, a whistle and call but she’ll not linger. Nose low to the ground,

she follows her waning dynasty in and out of the tree line, the throaty yodeling of loons and strawberry moon lifting the night’s lanterns.