from the cold road: houses visible (without wires) entrenched in white snow: sherd forest archaeology. car parked, bananas and bars packed, we hike. a magnesium flame painting, freezing. a collage. a frenzy. now, various floaters organized in armies playing war or grazing, flamingo legs embalmed and crooked and cooked, charred and glazed in a kiln, kin amid the cold air, the ground is a movie screen. the sun, sidelong, bruises our pilgrimage and lays shadows in place to dissect and incise. light like a plague, a pear flesh, a frozen swarm of locusts. the forest opens, we reach aforementioned rural shantytown. those houses when we parked and hiked to them were not houses, they were barns, the windows, doors all were painted in detail on pieces of plywood, some big movie set gone missing (headline: found! deceptive, chipping curtains hung out in the cold).