Huntington's Disease: The Hill

Sculpture by Billy Bond


6 The Hill

After school, I’d trudge the mile
through the thinning houses of the nearest
neighborhood, climb the barbed-wire fence twined

with rust-colored cow hair that marked
our land, and cross the sea of weeds and yellow
bitter-weed flowers by the stock pond, to the big hill

behind our house where, most days, I could already hear
Mom at the back door, moaning out over the hills
like a wraith. This was what it was to be trapped

in a body she could barely control,
a mind crumbling apart.
Dad spent long nights out drinking, Mike and Julie
disappeared when they could. Mom would moan

until she heard Dad stumble home, then collapse
into a hoarse sleep. I thought
she was trying to break my mind. Each night,
I dreamed the secret of escape: all I had

to do was push my legs beyond the limits
of endurance to run faster than a fox
who’s caught the scent of rabbit,
faster than the rabbit who escapes; as long

as no human eye saw me, I could be free.
Mornings, I woke in a stiff body,
spent awkward days avoiding the eyes
of classmates, teachers with
underpaid consciences.
Afternoons,

I stood, with the wild wheat swaying in the breeze,
and pounded my thighs to force them
to run, to run, to run.

C.L. Bledsoe

Posted over on The Dead Mule
From his Chapbook--MY MOTHER MAKING DONUTS