Jennifer Perrine

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.

---

Birds Like Stones Fall from the Sky

The factory swaddles
the town in gauze:
pink, sweet aftermath
of the plastics plant.
The air is barely
irritant, fleck of sand
we smooth and shine.
We inhale deep
the scent of you:
trifle, round dollop
of redwing in winter.
Wind-up toy, aerial
animal who won’t take
flight, you hop across
the tabletop, clever
ornament, wily
device. We wait, tickled
by your ticking, lean close
for your withheld song.
We fall like stones asleep
to your metronome.
All night, you click
our shared mating call:
too late, too late, too late.