Our steps echo inside the mist—
A foggy midnight on some suburban road.
We plod into the pale
Light of vapors hanging on the sheet of night.
In two hours on this road, not a single car
Has passed. We are tensed, hunching
In anticipation of some visit, the hiss
Of rolling wheels on the pavement.
Its cool and the night is wet
With a thick mesh of mist.
“Where are we going?” she asks us.
A small shape skips by, maybe a fox, edging the road;
It kills a mouse. The fog drapes itself across
The pines, the hooked iron barrier, the weak orange
Blur of streetlights, and our black figures.
I slide pine needles out of her hair
And, as the thing leaves its **** to rot,
Wipe traces of blood from her collar.
The glossed yellow lines curve, unseen
Into more mist and the silhouettes of trees:
Writhing shapes against the inky
Background of night. The three of us walking,
Wreathed in misty veils, like death-hoods.