pointing at the window she said to us
“freezing fog”
and we both glanced outside
confused and unsettled
with trepidation and fear
imagining our cars taking
layer upon layer
until we drove, each of us,
off the curving road
where we’d wait
blood pooling on the dash
for an arm or a winch or a sign from god
waiting for our countrymen
to pick us up by the neck and carry us to bed
bed, singular
and in bed time would cease
as we watched the moon improbably
rise, and continue rising
moving in weird ellipses, like a tango
or a barn dance
in the hills of this country
on wooden boards polished by hooves
and vomit and sawdust
shoes bearing down over the filth
and at the end of the night, blind, stumbling
crawling to each other over a fence knocked down by a reveller
our relief at reaching the top
and each other
as if we’d mounted the horizon
itself