and in the morning

it’s still Oklahoma: apocalyptic orange
light reaches through winter hair-trees, over 
smooth stucco shell of the Holiday Inn 
(which can take the color of cloud cover, 
nuclear mauve, Friday night money).

It says: Come out onto the dirt. Which was earth 
when asphalt was grass, a core going deep
as lake water under ice I’ve stood on,

screwed through with a steel helix, 
reached rubber fingers into for a salmon 
twisting on a barb caught in its sawtooth.

Cold breeds such delicate skin.
Cells that slow need not fight, just glow 
and dash, once. I faced the lake

with my brother, who is more than half
of me, has seen me break through, crawl back.
We made fire on the ice: orange flowers

over flint, clouds still dominating us, 
death’s siblings standing around on ice
as in a prison yard. Sledding home, we played

at blocking the tree line with a black mitten 
to stare down at our boots: let them swing 
in utter white. That felt like floating.
We were aquatic, uncovered things in void, 
hung from an agreement	       as yet unbroken.

Read more from Issue 20.2.