Two Days Twelve Thousand Years Ago, and: Angel Jacks

Two Days Twelve Thousand Years Ago, and: Angel Jacks Brian Blanchfield (bio) Two Days Twelve Thousand Years Ago Two days twelve thousand years agoor more, the giant lobe of ice that had dammedthe Clark Fork and backfilled a glacial lakein five Montana valleys nine hundred feetof water high unlocked—some say was floated,undone where it had sutured to the rock—or anyway at whatever fatal compromise wasburst, and on that side, Idaho, the gushwas so great that winds ahead of the sixty milean hour flood whipped the loess loosefrom earth and drove it into dunes southalong the western front to the Snake and poundingscraped Spokane and Sprague and, west, Washtucnato bedrock and redrew the gorge through tothe Pacific. I've lived on that side of things.The Trump and Covid epoch inundatedthe editorial pages and real estate ofthe college town until Ammon actual Bundycame with a posse to avenge the honorof anti-maskers singing hymns in FriendshipSquare dispersed at first by blares above ofWet Ass Pussy my own queer studentsplayed at volume and then by police enforcingthe ordinance against gathering in numberswhen the virus was deadliest. The landscape haschanged so, nightly programs on hotel cable End Page 42 slake a thirst to peer into the Moscowhomicides since, into the cargo vanmilitia men readied their riot in,parked at the perimeter of Pridelast summer more or less where the firstof the flood came crashing. On this side,the energy was suction. Once the plug was outeverything was hydraulics, last and mostof all the sea that had to pour uphill,over the notches at Markle and Wills, whichI climbed today to look over into the Camasbasin that slurped so hard the largest ripplesof earth on earth were risen and kettle poolswere plucked by downward spouts. By one, ice yetat equinox, I photographed some tracksthat must be grizzly, enormous paws at amblepace away from a spring in snowcakewarm enough the claw marks are dull,and by another all the fur and none of the bonesof an elk I think, which might have been hauledby a truck that didn't hit but found it.Nearby, the egg-sized bean scat led me,crawling, under the barb into a meadow whereolder kill was carcass white exceptfor pretty black hooves and fetlock hide.I held a block of basalt unrounded and linedby layers of seasons in the Pleistoceneuntil some sixty years of buildup—like, say,from Civil Rights to now, beneath whichmy whole life has been settled material—pressured the divide until it gave and bottom currentmade ripple trains across the prairie Icame to overlook yesterday and today. End Page 43 Angel Jacks A late March dusting overnight, confectionfinish. Sun in the east sky pushing outnovelty. I don't think I'll go out awhile.My husband and I have Aries mothers, westiffen and stun in their active industry,that's our grammar: not really here, hoodingour doodle with our free hand, turned awayas if by wind. Mine and I don't speakanymore. Their birthdays start and endthe week ahead. Ever late preparing,we unlock the hideyhole: amulets, boyishsentiments, simpler years. Pantry stand.We resist each other's help, assist each other'sno and nod. Ten bighorn on the Permaridge Monday when I drove home, careful,still, each midstair, all on the caseonly they see across the face of the cutoutbasalt pile, the pachinko of one blockpretty pleistocene tink to its fall.None breaks to countenance the mistake.We looked more than a minute at our opposite.Ace through nine face up, all of a suit. In the pool that morning there were three of us.Judy, retired, and Ellen, not yet, tendingbar weeknights at Main & Arlee. We spokeof all manner of things: family, tea, heydays End Page 44 of devilry here or peace, the summer shadethe bare tree will give, the clock beneath...