They shed Bodie like snakes do skin,
slipped from it restless…tight
to peel themselves to new…
drained themselves downhill
from hell blister, frost bite
snow blind, tapped out veins.
Story goes…before she’d
come to purgatory, some kid
wrote in her diary…
Bye God. We’re going to Bodie.
Perhaps dad talk…of easy digging gold.
By God! We’re going to Bodie!
became her mom talk…of easy giving women,
whiskey, brawling, thieving, lying
freeze to death first…no place for a girl.
By God, we’re going to Bodie?
Mom was mostly right.
I’ve seen ghost towns…
their decay arrested states,
for by god, they appear daily
on the evening news.
Bonnie Marshall
Photographer: Phil Douglis
