The Mind Moves Back

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an imitation of Richard Hugo’s “The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field”

CHRISTIAN VINSON

A pillowcase, kittens, and the Chehalis. Dad says he’s being humane, he lies to himself. Isn’t it shit, how the mind moves back.

Today I walk, alone, in the woods. Elma, early, eager to hit the dirt before my thoughts. A pillowcase, kittens, and the Chehalis.

Beneath a fallen branch I see a black bag. Isn’t it shit to be here and there. Isn’t it shit, how the mind moves back.

I play Tekken 2 while mom screams with each strike from a drunken dad and I just turn up the volume. A pillowcase, kittens, and the Chehalis.

These walks are always long, the air is always cold. I always see what I don’t want to see. Isn’t it shit, how the mind moves back.

The guilty like the numbing that comes with cold. Isn’t it shit, how the mind moves back to a walk by the river that should have been warm. A pillowcase, kittens, and the Chehalis.

Christian Vinson is an undergraduate student studying Professional and Creative Writing at Central Washington University. With an alcoholic father and a drug-addicted mother, Christian Vinson had a tumultuous childhood. Vinson uses his upbringing as a driving force in his work. Vinsons writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. He is planning on pursuing his MFA upon completion of his undergraduate program. Two of his poems, Definitions and The Hard Thing, have been featured in the June issue of NRM. Born in Carson City, Nevada, he spent his first fourteen years bouncing around unstable households across the Pacific Northwest. Vinson lost contact with his mother when he was five, and his father died when he was fourteen. During his last four years of high school, he resided with his stepmother and her abusive boyfriend. He currently resides in the Seattle area.

Kristina Tsvenger

Tradition

CHRISTIAN VINSON

It was an Easter tradition for my family to hunt lizards at the isolated cemetery in Genoa, Nevada. We’d get there just before dusk, when the sky was purple, and the lingering heat promised that the sun would return the next day. If I was lucky, it would rain and awaken the sage, making it dance with the air. I’d chase alligator lizards until the horizon snuffed the sun’s flame. Then, the headlights would come on. I searched for lizards around graves in the light of the truck until a smash of a bottle and a sudden scream came from the bed. I ran around and found my mom sobbing into her hands, blood sneaking out the cracks of her fingers. A 40oz. Old English was shattered all around her feet. My dad looked at me with eyes that said I was next if I spoke up. “Let’s go. Your mom hurt herself.”

Anna Ismagilova

The Pig

CHRISTIAN VINSON

In that trailer with the windows spray painted black I sat while you fucked off, man after man.

In that trailer, I had a pig instead of a mom. That pig watched me. That pig made sure I didn’t interrupt the flow of dope into your veins.

I sat silent so the pig wouldn’t snap. Trapped by its stare, I rarely moved.

When the pig slept, and you nodded off I sat on the trailer steps looking to the moon for assurance there was more than that sharps container soda can home. Like you, the moon ignored me. That pig

was mean but that pig was there when you were busy trading our food stamps for meth.

I don’t want to be angry that I knew a 500 pound hog better than I knew you.

I want to forget I want to move on I want to forgive you–

How do I? How do I forgive you for loving the high more than your son?

I can’t, but I forgive that pig.