Amy Baskin
Brothers, Oregon 97712
Cover Art: Robert Adams, Clear-cut and burned, east of Arch Cape, Oregon, Gelatin silver print, 1979,
Brothers, Oregon 97712
--population 87
Brothers, Oregon
Odd in its insistence of the plural. Neglected siblings of Sisters. Sisters thrives, nursed by glaciers. Life springs forth from those mountains. Brothers feeds on errant travelers, swollen four times its size by our presence alone a succulent during a flood. At the general store, the woman sells us a solitary arrowhead and half of a glistening thunder egg. We flip through milk cartons full of vintage Life magazines-- trapped insects in amber, pristine in their laminate sleeves. In the corner, a TV offers its cataract lens of a fearsome world, with no turning back. In the great expanse of sagebrush and sky, will the lone raptor fall prey to those warnings? To the west, the Cascades are dwarfed by distance and the high altitude of abandonment. On a dusty stoop by the gas pumps next to an ancient creek bed we sip glass-bottled Cokes, speculating what lies further east. We could have taken the road crossing the Ochocos past the caged grizzly bear at the Mitchell gas station, into Picture Canyon and beyond John Day. Looking at the blank swath on the map, it would be wrong to avoid this stretch any longer. To forever wonder and fear the dry, vacant roads, the towns in name only. We must pay respect to the severed relations. |
Amy Baskin's work is featured in journals including The Ghazal Page, Postcards, Poetry & Prose, Dirty Chai, and Panoply. A 2016 Willamette Writers Kay Snow Poetry award recipient for her poem “About Face.” Amy has worked on revision with former Oregon poet laureate Paulann Petersen and Renee Watson, and participated in generative groups hosted by Allison Joseph and Jenn Givhan.