Driving to Rhode Island in the Snow
A
gossamer scrap of moon is adjusted awkwardly
on denim sky. I take the wheel in one palm, modifying
the mirror for the slip of sun between flake and hill. The roads
from here to Boston are creviced, like cleavage,
and I don't know what exit in Rhode Island I should take.
It
snows as if it doesn't care, the mist of it, a cyclone blotting
road. I am amazed at how dispassionately it falls, with slow, ceaseless
redundancy. Is it that New England has become bored with color,
calenture? Or is it simply me, weary with this stretch
of Connecticut that will not end.
There
isn't any radio this far from Bridgeport, and 95 is an anthill
this close to six. I wish the defrost was working because breath
is destroying the windows and silence is amassing in my lap.
Virginia
was dazzling when I left, morning designed
like liquid, azure lava; I don't know why I gave her up so easily. But
someone
told me leaving is the first step. And it is Rhode Island. Providence.
The 2River View, 4.3 (Spring 2000)