Totaled

A poem about nature

Winters, when the granite giants sleep,
	you go — 
		to wander the shadow of whitened skies — 
			to freeze beneath frigid falls— 
		to glide over lonely roads — 

	the Dawn Wall pierced the barrel bellied fog — 
		its entrails palely spilling 
			watery over the paved snake 
				winding through the frozen valley’s heart — 

leather and steel and the rubber of tires
					bursting
		whining 
				grinding —
	the naked wheel bites down 
						as it to rear 
	— back!

As if it knows its mist-mirrored twin 
	is full

		of Gravity — 

This fusion wristed grip — it’s not enough
			the wheel 
spinning freely over the axel
				the axel
spinning freely over the road
	— away
					from the center of things 
							over the edge.


Tail lights bloom redly — a springtime’s worth of flowers open 
         in the dew-strung concertina 
         in the open palms of bent and frosted grass
         in the distant unknowable granite soul
							of your sleeping mountains

---