Minnesota Winter, Travelling North(Blood Lotus 9/08)

“If I had a brain in my head,” she told me

“I’d turn this car around, head south until

I ran out of country.” Maybe it was just

the cold, eating its way down into our bones

or ginger cats fighting, flinging their snarling

stink in the back seat, or maybe

the time of day, not yet five and already

long shadows swelling across the two-lane,

and in the sky a hint of blue-black night.

It could have been her fingers twirling

like angry spiders or salt and ice smearing

our windshield chalk dust white, trucks

hurtling down the dark alley of trees, who

knows, or bloody news seeping from her

radio, twenty-one down, shooter dead

and who in their right mind left to count the votes?