Field Guide for Park Rangers

Chelsea Stockham is a writer from Bristol, England. Her primary passion is poetry. She is currently completing a Creative Writing degree at Sheffield Hallam University, and working on her first poetry collection. "Field Guide for Park Rangers" was a runner-up in Short Édition's Long Story Short Award, 2020.

How Yosemite can fitwithin these four fragile walls,stretched across the bedspreadwith hip bone peaks pointingheavenward. You wake to dawn's open-window woodnote, ribcage canyon yawning underconifer air, ridges kissed by mistedbreath and lips of florid morning.How you can trace each trail, each thick white-water and thin snow creek scar, by fingernailand still lose yourself like a boyscout between the ponderosas. How Yosemite can fit in the bathtub and the two-seaterthat sheds its leather like pine needlesbut never in your arms, neverlong enough to hear the chasmicecho of your heartbeat return

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