An ice storm is coming.
They park near Oakland Cemetery and set out walking
toward the old, dead railroad,
embracing there, in the cold,
and she remembers a first snowflake,
a wheel, lit upon the sleeve
of her father’s overcoat, Indiana in winter.
This man’s beard is red, not gray. His mind is
not content, like her father’s, but a head beam, tearing
over tire lots and boarded up grocers,
unflagging in its search, dissatisfied with everything,
dreading what’s mechanical in human touch, un-oiled squeal
of forward movement, howling for comfort.
They baffle the rim of the buried rails with their boots,
hint of moss in the falling snow, like postcard lovers daring
the edge of a summer sea, eager
for heat to wash over them,
but heedful, also, to warning,
carriage too far, too fast, alone.