The Long Line Of Elk: Poems and Artifacts

Published by Flooding island and presented in response to the author's Montana Voice podcast listeners who have asked for this compilation, this book includes 140 poems and 'Success, ' the origin short story of the novel Paper Targets.

"I still look for her everywhere. In the city crowds, I sometimes see a face like hers, or, walking in a certain way, a girl with long, thin arms.... But I find her most in solitary places: along the Blackfoot River in Autumn, a place she never saw, where red river rocks sparkle in the low water and dark trout pretend to be shadows...." - from Success. The Absurd Grit -
There was a day when I woke up
and knew I was leaving.
The absurd grit had gotten
behind my collar and into the works.
The sky was perpetually dirty,
like an industrial twilight of broken dreams.
People whom I had
tried to love and befriend
had become strange and cruel.
Nothing was right at home.
Even the coffee was bad.
So I left.
Highways became roads became trails.
And along the way there were
emerald lakes and silence.
Like this place I chanced upon.
I thought about calling you
to say that there were no more questions,
but I had lost your number,
and I wasn't even sure
how to pronounce your name.
When I tried to remember,
I realized that what I needed most
was to forget.
So I did.
And then the coffee,
and everything else,
started to become delicious again.

• Steve S. Saroff