Another writer once told me that every poet has to have their roadkill piece, and “Pallbearers” is mine. It follows an experience I had in Big Sur, Ca, where Highway One is the only way in or out of the region. I spent much of my time there grappling with how the landscape holds equal parts beauty and danger, light and dark, life and death. Strangely, I wrote this poem while back visiting to help care for the partner described in the piece, by then an ex, who had just permanently injured his hand in a car accident on the same stretch of highway. It was only later I realized the connection between this reflection on an event a year earlier, and the tragedy he’d just experienced.

Emily Montgomery is a writer and teacher based in Richmond, Va. She is a graduate of the University of Alabama's MFA program, and her work is published or forthcoming in journals including the Sonora Review, Waxwing Literary Journal and Southeast Review. She's currently writing a novel based on her experience living in Big Sur, Ca.