I, a chthonic shadow in the muted earthlight, Lift my leaking lids, Origins of streambeds fresh with briny water, And pick up my pen. In the frostbit forest I steer my metal steed onto A path that looks to want for wear, Over the gravel past two basketball hoops Hanging forgotten from the birch, Beside a gully waiting in earnest for snowmelt— Waiting futilely. I hear their voices—laughter— I veer from the path, Tires scrabbling for purchase on a pallid Polyethylene pipe spanning the pit. Across I charge through the wintry wood, Climbing to the crowded clearing By the dying light of day, And on the cusp of the glade I drop my bike and face three faces That make all the others melt to mist, That nine years could not erode from memory, Aged and yet the same. My eyes meet Elizabeth’s And an oh-my-god! Escapes her mouth; Whitney half-rises, lips half-parted, en train de souvenir— She’s bleached her hair; And Kayley turns toward me, the setting sun Glinting off her glasses, putting a veritable fire in her eyes. Liz is first on her feet, but Whitney is first to reach me. Awash with nostalgia, words choke in my throat. They embrace me as one, Say my name, and my name, The hymn to the hearse, Transcends its sex and mosaics unrealized, And the sounds lose their meaning, For the sounds become the meaning. We are a bubble of warmth that the cold Winds of change must swirl around. The wind changes direction. It flees from the east, Where mountain towns taste the cinders first, And whispers curse through every ear. The iridescent oil-painted sky Becomes a bruise as cirrus filaments Make a desperate bid for the blood-red horizon Where the sun beats solemn Down to its termination. We watch with human wonder. Beyond the veil of clouds, Our scarlet star touches the Earth, Pulsing weakly, And I spin and see behind us, Diametrically opposed, Rising between two peaks, A black cigarette burn in the tapestry of the world, Spreading like the incandescent edges of a childhood love letter Set alight by someone else’s perfect match. It was then I knew: Today was the last day. Darkness Howls across the land. Land undulates like boiling water. Waterfalls of fire spill on sylvan hills. Hills quake and stretch for the heavens. Heaven mandates the rise of Hell. Hell-on-Earth occurs with strangely little sound. Sound indeed seems altogether absent save our voices. I voice a question to Kayley: Are any of these mountains volcanos? No. Her answer is an impetus For us to remain invictus, Not in No’s literal meaning, But in the sound that carries it. Simply because she said it. Three more steeds conjure before us And we ride not gently into the black night: Our tread attacks the loosed earth, Our mounts bucking and hurdling Down the slopes as some vengeful Force of nature hurtles after us, Brittle sundered branches snapping at our heels, The woods unlit by any moon or sun or star, Now only discernable by the nocuous glow Of the crackling tapestry at our backs. We are four horsewomen And we are monarchs, queens, Painted ladies, woodland skippers, Pressing against our stirrups, The pedals of flowers. We are butterflies on wheels. When Whitney’s wheels spin out from under her, My spirit leaves my body on the ground; I watch myself and Liz and Kayley skid To semi-halts to aid her, locking arms With one another, lifting friendship from The jaws of dissolution, kicking off, The Darkness just another obstacle, The next adventure just a night away. I couldn’t tell, for the untimely break From that reality, if we had bade Adieu the cataclysmic tide that rent The knolls and roads, the sweet repose that I Can see that little life was rounded by, And yet I chance to say I’m confident We left behind the threadbare strands unpaid, Another realm to smolder in our wake. ***