Missing

They keep asking if I
miss the mountain
and I don't.

I miss the apothecary's workshop, and
the way I used to measure out the herbs
on little scales
while mixing prescriptions.
I remember how to poison you, still. Or break your fever, I can
fix your insomnia or
flush your liver
or take down the swelling, or
five you nightmares,
or help you breathe
but
the rest of it all seems like a dream.
Like I woke up in the middle of a city in winter
a thousand miles north
and maybe I do miss something, or rather
I am missing something, or rather
I am missing.

Maybe I slept for five years
and was here the whole time, wrapped around an old pillow
in a quiet room
and the rhododendrons never kissed my forehead.

Maybe no one knows where I am, still.

I am afraid.
what if I cannot ever know what happened there,
what if there was no fire.
What if I did not swim naked in the South Toe,
what if I imagined the dead snake on the front porch,
its freshly-severed head, and my sweaty palms
clutching the shovel's old handle,
and that shovel was older than me, I said.

What if I'm wrong.
What if I can't remember getting here.
what if I wake up somewhere else, again,
with no certain knowledge
of arrivals
of maps
of how to kill a copperhead
before it kills me, first.