Nepali Microcosm                

by Annie Klier Newcomer
                                                                       

It all depends on the order you land in
and the sherpa you end up with.

If you make the right choice,
you get to live. Guess wrong, you die.

Shuffling your feet pointed upward,
you hold on tight to your dream like a haiku

hemorrhaging words. It’s hard to catch
your allotted 5 breaths per step

when you look down a 6,000 foot valley
death drop. Growing up I was fourth in the line

of a dozen young children. I side-stepped
many disappointments, like hikers on Everest

stepping over bodies who will never leave
the mountain. Often I could not see my mother

though she stood 5 feet tall at the summit
expecting us all to arrive. My dad, at base-camp,

knew better. He understood the crashing and burning.
Yes, and because he knew this, he wept watching us

squatted down on boots skiing out of control
off the mountain, he, with too few arms to catch us all.


* * * * *

"Nepali Microcosm" was first published in I-70 Review and is part of Annie Klier Newcomer's brand-new poetry collection Comets: Relationships that Wander (Finishing Line Press, February 25, 2022).

Annie Klier Newcomer teaches poetry classes at Turning Point, a Center for Hope & Healing in Kansas City, Kansas. She also helps coach chess for After-School Programs in mid-town KC. Annie writes as a way to connect and to add value to her life. Presently she is an editor for Flapper Press Poetry Café and a member of the Key West Cigar Factory Poetry Group.