We were twenty minutes outside
Asheville when we slipped, carelessly
From the edge of the earth
Into an oil painting.

We were, still are really, perpetually
Twenty minutes away when the traffic
would clog, and Michael would blow
Into a tissue; trying to clear both.

Every curve would birth another stretch
Of road, another ridge of mountains, their
Sight not unlike the unlikely vantage of seeing
your shoulders for the first time in film.

Then we’d break again, sure that this was
Some sort of ******* afterlife, full of minor
Inconveniences and signs warning that
‘Bridge ices before road,’
Mocking us in our perpetual summer.