The Mountains Before California // Lisa Liu

The lake is beautiful and warm in February
You’d never guess
that these mountains are bone mountains,
these sandy snowy cliffs, they eat children
The Donner grave is a resort now
the luxury cabins, they don’t know,
but in their hearts, they were the toothpick
trees that stood sentry
as a dead man’s flesh was stripped from his body
to feed his friend
—human chops? The Lone Eagle Grille was a
bloody campfire, what does leg taste like?
or wrist? Or liver, human liver that just
before was feeling the cold, the American Dream
What a feast! Human flesh without seasoning--
butchers or beasts or survivors are they
who peeled off the clothes to see his friend’s
cold chest, and cut the soft stiff skin to reveal
the heart, the heart that doesn’t beat, but it betrays!
the heart that loved your wife
quick, wipe your hands on the snow, let it carry the
red
before you have to skin yourself too--
just don’t look at his face
The bone of his now-bare ribs is as white as the snow
this meal, this feast, this flesh grew up with you
it ran, it sang, it smoked with you
you’ll pay this debt in Heaven or in Hell
wherever you see him again
You chew—his muscles are stiff
It’s so cold now, Hell has frozen over, you know
Or maybe it’s Heaven, cold, white, beautiful,
don’t feel, don’t taste--
O! California!
The trees, they know, they know
The mountain, she stands watch


​Lisa Liu