February

A mist appalls the windshield. 
So I still see trees as moral lessons, 
as I pass under them, shadowy and astute.

The glazed aspen branches hover. 
Ice heats up and cracks, road tar steams 
like some animal where the blush 

of cheek is chilled by annunciation. 
I cannot say her face was trauma driven.
I'm still saturated with her, taking in 

her etched-in countenance, otherworldly, 
enveloping, frightening, the face you can't see, 
pressed against it. So how can you imagine 

what it feels like? Their gravity suffices, 
the sealed and straining torsos 
of aspens, an affront to our high-pitched moans, 

feverish with disarray. Our expressions 
have too much God in them, too much cloud, too much 
blood on nail, too much arrow, too much quiver.