The Woman on That Hill

No one ever went up there though
everyone over forty had been,
had seen her face falling away
until her cheek bone shone through
the hole the cancer had carved.

That’s what everyone said, anyway,
Even those of us too young to know.

When my father caught me smoking
He told me that she had loved Camels,
Still sucked on them, unfiltered,
And when she exhaled her face-hole
Blew gray-black oval smoke rings.

She smoked often in my dreams,
But her face always turned away.

Though I never saw or knew her,
Her rotting skin still burns my eyes.