The Canyon is My Alibi

DONNA VORREYER

Of course, it is – it is grand, it knows everything, including how I could not have slashed your tires last Tuesday outside that other woman’s house. Just listen as it whistles how I lost my way in its great crevasse, how each dark corner turned dead end, how each forked path led the wrong way back to the bottom. Listen to it roar, with its ridiculous river thunder, how I skated on the sliprock, twisted both ankles, stopped to rest by a spigot for filling canteens, avoided the eyes of a lecherous park ranger. It will tell you, by way of its scorpion tongue, how I stumbled up its sides in too-tight boots, missed the last bus to the parking lot, shuffled another three miles to the car, slow headlights following behind the whole way. How I left but had to pull over near the entrance gate before I fell asleep at the wheel. How I could not have been there. How I woke at the meaty hand of that ranger stroking my weary thighs.