There is that strange slow build and thickening
of air. We stand in clouds, and disappear, passing into other
worlds of white refracted bone-light, the moon itself turned
efflorescent and wet on our cheeks and arms, glistening in the
fine hairs, so we are shining and invisible
and yet there is danger. With no distinctions, the world
drifts loose; the mooring ropes, years in the water, dissolve; the
boat comes free. Somewhere on route 80 the headlights of an
oncoming car seem to fill the world with light. They do. The
wheels screech and swerve
In the fog all things connect, collide. And we have not
yet learned to live that way. All that moves is dangerous, all that
is still is dangerous--the car, the tree that stood for a hundred
years.
The lone man on the edge of the highway grips his head
in his hands and shining like a desert prophet, staggers toward
Omaha.
--Joel Peckham
from the collection The Heat of What Comes
