Longevity Study
by Alicia Hoffman
Along the Blue Ridge Parkway, there is a guy walking
barefoot through the Smokies with a turquoise parrot
on his shoulder. The lady at the gas station outside
Asheville, North Carolina tells me the story as she
rings me up for gas. For years, she says, because
the story goes he was lonely and near the end and
cried out in prayer for company and the next day
beheld the majesty and mystery of the bird, and
since then, he’s been sharing the word about
the second coming, painting slogans about saviors
on Appalachian Granite and giving them away for free
to anyone that asks. And I, too, want to ask the impossible.
I want to soar through this commercial world. To know
the true bank. The one that fuels even the fledglings,
the lost ones, insignificant and unnoticeable in the trees.
Specks of green in the fury of spring. I want no promissory
notes. I want to gift it all away. The hailstorm and
the outages. The electricity grids. The satellites
spaced sequentially through our galaxy. Take it:
the mountains here are steep and the valley is long.
Solar plexus to hip. Ear curve to ankle to foot. Forgive me,
I have no words for this desire to live so long.
What would it take to be the road out of here?
What would it take to curve and flow over the summit?
When we make it to Clingman’s Dome I see the invisible
borders of states. When I get to where I’m eventually going,
I hope it looks like this – no unnecessary distinctions to delineate.
No tolls to pass. Just a destination miles ahead. Just a distance to fly by.
barefoot through the Smokies with a turquoise parrot
on his shoulder. The lady at the gas station outside
Asheville, North Carolina tells me the story as she
rings me up for gas. For years, she says, because
the story goes he was lonely and near the end and
cried out in prayer for company and the next day
beheld the majesty and mystery of the bird, and
since then, he’s been sharing the word about
the second coming, painting slogans about saviors
on Appalachian Granite and giving them away for free
to anyone that asks. And I, too, want to ask the impossible.
I want to soar through this commercial world. To know
the true bank. The one that fuels even the fledglings,
the lost ones, insignificant and unnoticeable in the trees.
Specks of green in the fury of spring. I want no promissory
notes. I want to gift it all away. The hailstorm and
the outages. The electricity grids. The satellites
spaced sequentially through our galaxy. Take it:
the mountains here are steep and the valley is long.
Solar plexus to hip. Ear curve to ankle to foot. Forgive me,
I have no words for this desire to live so long.
What would it take to be the road out of here?
What would it take to curve and flow over the summit?
When we make it to Clingman’s Dome I see the invisible
borders of states. When I get to where I’m eventually going,
I hope it looks like this – no unnecessary distinctions to delineate.
No tolls to pass. Just a destination miles ahead. Just a distance to fly by.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Alicia Hoffman now lives, writes, and teaches in Rochester, New York. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the Rainier Writing Workshop and is the author of three collections, most recently ANIMAL (Futurecycle Press). Her poems have been published in a variety of journals, including Thrush, Radar Poetry, Trampset, The Night Heron Barks, Tar River Poetry, The Penn Review, Glass: A Poetry Journal, One Art, and elsewhere. Find her at:
www.aliciamariehoffman.com
www.aliciamariehoffman.com