It was a fat bald man

without children populating

his body like fruits

to a tree. The navel, 

a wrinkled orange. Cold

defeating color.

Snow burying

out of shape man.

The mountain seems to have

rearranged itself. Blinding

white paths have formed

a cipher in cursive.

Keep your eyes on the road,

it says. Flakes become

cars caroming,

carrying on. 

The failure of chains

breaking on ice?

Our determination

dissipating like sunlight,

floating in this snowstorm.

I hide my terror.

We’re all together

keeping each other’s

expectations dry, 

warm.

She shakes her head and wags

a finger. I shrug and sigh. With my bare feet,

I trace fossilized paths

of bones, ferns, eggs and other

possibilities.

Then we talk.

The hybrid cannot stop now. Eighty-five is a luxury, a deliberation through the fog and dust. It’s all a mirage suddenly. I fumble for the pedal, drowning in the blur.

Please let me say what I want now. Stop telling me things I can’t do.

You are the brave one facing this gun. The trigger is rubber unlike the bullets.

What to do with these book cases? Children? Furniture instantly turn into antique pieces. 

My skin wrinkles, becomes embedded with codes. The cold is seeping in, expectant and unwelcome.

I ask for directions and you say yellow.

The green is on the black and out of the red.

I ask, “How close?”

You say, “Nothing farther than a hypotenuse.”