“He smelled so holy, like a sacrifice burning nearby” – Danez Smith
Another path yields
when you press your hand into his chest
You ache in the vehicle’s front seat,
body full with the sound of snapping bird wings
Did you hear how the fire road
cleared its throat as you proceeded?
Death is a lonesome predator
The wild grasses bowing under its feet
You must be sure of where you’re going
This is wildfire season after all
Road cleaved in the dark there is no one
not even God to watch you flee
Your bodies are ignition
and resistance His engine
cuts out halfway down the secret highway
where coyotes squeal and darkness chews
at its mangy limbs tendons caught between its teeth
He is married to the virtue
of disbelief: he cannot read
this black-honey sky or its prophetic glaze
When you’re done being his vice in the pickup’s bed
you will be like a splintered wishbone the pass of anticipation
Grown men get bored and
fire roads vanish into the night
You cannot retrace these road markers
or how they caught his truck’s high beams
those evil eyes
splitting the brush like a river or a lover’s legs
When he takes you home map the
stretch
of pavement the winding back
of a pit viper You hear its rattle
when you close your eyes
When you remember how his hand
without its wedding ring
made you an equal made you an outcome
The fire road sharpens its teeth You must know
some paths cannot be untraveled