whiteout
BY MAUREEN SEATON
I dreamt a land of someone else’s invention.
It was a time for big decisions, so I followed four
ghostly Mustangs doing 95 on I-70 into Colorado.
I saw Vs of snow geese heading in opposite directions,
passing through each other’s flight pattern
like subatomic particles or the sudden astral bodies
of Americans killed last year by other Americans
with assault weapons, and I knew it was a sign,
geese and Mustangs shadowing each other in and
out of formation like sylphs. I loved them. Who
wouldn’t? Just east of Denver the blizzard hit
and we all slowed to crawling, even the semis,
even the Land Rovers. We fishtailed and jackknifed
through Limon until half of us were upside down
on the median, the other half praying and peeing.
My dream, or whoever’s dream, had not prepared me
for death, though I’d witnessed the palindrome geese
and the phantom Mustangs. My wheels were in motion
in a way that reminded me of a marriage I’d failed at
for twenty-five years. So I pulled off in Byers
and got a room at the Budget Host Longhorn Motel
from a man who looked like a snow angel who said:
We only have two kings left. I lay down on one and slept.
