Jennifer Perrine
From Issue 9
Easter Weekend, 1998
Snow appeared like alms that Thursday,
freshly minted coins that glinted
in the headlights’ glow, the long miles
home through that blizzard flung, reckless,
atop April’s blooms. The highway
had closed, no one on the road save
us. All broadcasts announced makeshift
shelters in churches—I begged you
to stop. You would not. When we hit
a slick spot, when the car spun out,
I counted each flash of the rail
past my window—three, four—shouted
pump the brakes. In those slow moments,
I saw each plump flake that burdened
the trees. I watched the median
rise, white leviathan, white sea.
The whole time, you screamed, I’m sorry
I killed you. I cannot shake those
words. I wound them tight to replace
the dim thread that unspooled from me
when, even as your body cooled
among the mounting drifts, I still
believed that we would weather death.
freshly minted coins that glinted
in the headlights’ glow, the long miles
home through that blizzard flung, reckless,
atop April’s blooms. The highway
had closed, no one on the road save
us. All broadcasts announced makeshift
shelters in churches—I begged you
to stop. You would not. When we hit
a slick spot, when the car spun out,
I counted each flash of the rail
past my window—three, four—shouted
pump the brakes. In those slow moments,
I saw each plump flake that burdened
the trees. I watched the median
rise, white leviathan, white sea.
The whole time, you screamed, I’m sorry
I killed you. I cannot shake those
words. I wound them tight to replace
the dim thread that unspooled from me
when, even as your body cooled
among the mounting drifts, I still
believed that we would weather death.