one night in montgomery, i hitched
a ride on the back of a motorcycle
with a woman i didn't know.

in the cold, i watched clouds move through
a black sea like bodies of ice - heavily,
extinguishing stars that bloomed like
matches in the dark.

we raced forward, combustible, somehow
stationary. the pavement, wet, was the sky,
and we, floating, sank like stones into the
reservoirs of each other.

behind us, an anthem of streetlights, moon-pale, a mass of glimmering bones. ahead, trees, heavy with winter, folding over us, the air scrubbing our skin with fog.

the shadows swallowed us whole. we leaned
into the wind, levitating, letting our bodies be carried through them.