Linnea Nelson
our hands began to smell of smoke
somewhere between the lexingtons of kentucky & virginia
as we passed through the surprise
ice crystals falling around us like how we once conceived
of magic colors whipped raw on the landscape
& depths igniting as we silently approached
we told our friends
we were leaving the west because of the weather
there were other reasons
for the vanishing
a kind of infidelity had occurred
we kept waking up thinking of other
places shaken conscious by some
distant strain started seeing our city as a language
we had not spoken
well enough
but mostly I left because I had not been kind
to him there
I had called him the worst name
I could think stranger my husband
told me once as a child he innocently called
a waitress bastard
which is to say
what do we know of nomenclature
& there is no word for the act of disappearing
to somewhere you have not yet
conjured a storm
but it is not a mystery the mystery was how
even when we finally stopped & stayed
where we had been going
I felt I was moving at all times
even when still I felt the weather
& myself moving
towards him