Fairfax (ii)

The car shimmering with ice
in Jackson
and the icicles
on the mirror
didn't melt until the next morning
in Dallas
and the roads gleaming
in the tail lights
like black velvet
soft and glistening
across dull dark grass

now El Paso
rises
out of the desert, and under
the foothills
and the desert rising
sparked
like cut crystal
as the sun fell

and Arizona is sharp
as a sheet of glass
pressed flat and gleaming
by the weight of the sun

before Asheville
I said
I would smear your faces
across the rolling hills
and the features fell
one by one

frozen
then flowing

snow in the Smokies
the air itself was
glass
at the edge of the mountains

froze and sank into the asphalt
I ran
over
the familiar counters
I went skidding
rumbling
over them, all night
into Mid-land

and when the oil rigs
plunged
I was empty