Winter Highway

Winter Hiahvvay Cynthia Huntington This is a hard road; that is a heavy sky. Black rocks, and the trees are black as well, being bare. Wicks of burned candles, stubble on the mountains' scalp. The road cuts clean, narrow as a lie. Winding through rock, it casts its deep intention northward: inevitable, because a road cannot end. Though it stretches forward and reaches out itself, it cannot move. Perhaps somewhere in Canada it disappears among trees, relents and empties into dirt. What cold reason makes a road. As if there were only one way, inexorable. Every disaster, every loss foretold. Deer that follow their ancestors' paths into oncoming traffic. The narrow pass, the swerve, the crash, the car spraying glass on impact, there where the bridge rises over the riverbed, along the high grade cut through granite. Then the body hauled up the ravine with ropes. Each pull and heave bumps the canvas sling against the bank. ??? ...