We’re halfway through the Adirondacks
when the sky darkens like water
touched by ink. I hear, deep in hibernation,
the storm start to clank and crawl.
I see the calf, ten years ago, freeze in its sac
as it drops from the womb. Dark slinks closer
like a panther. Between the ghost trees,
I see myself appear, a dark silhouette,
scaling the whistling drifts. I see her circle out,
then cut in on the car, you driving,
snow-shadows crossing
the face I love. Our headlights scan,
slicing a white nightmare’s stills.
Around every bend I fear
we’ll meet her, as she glides mutely
through the snow-flecks,
now like hammers drumming,
to usher me back into birth,
into this stillness, where the voice coils
to silence in the black hatches
closing between the white—
Even as I reach through
this night to hold your hand,
she comes shuffling into the road.
She swerves, as if to save you,
then turns to blizzard. If we snag
on the road’s black ice edge
and go all the way down,
I’ll drag you too, I’ll say come with me,
nothing will separate us anymore.