Rises monstrous out of the Baltoro Glacier

Playing poker with oxygen levels

Plays leap frog with embolisms.

Malice and vanity join forces so

murder guns the air even before

the Death Zone.  Down suits, bold and cocky

registers climber ambitions.

 

The Serac , a crisp, white wall of kill

Threatens to round and pound for

days before it does so.

A suicide bomber waiting for its moment.

And Art’s rescue was in full flow before

the avalanche took him and he faded into

powder.

 

All the boys gone doing what they loved

Big Ger and Rolf, who left his Cecilie

on the ropes. Wilco’s lust for his summit

saw the Koreans tangled and questions asked.

No answers, though, and ninety different stories

Crowded into a bottleneck of truth and

lies as the moans of Winter’s

ghosts howl louder.