If only we had left home a tad earlier
maybe we would have passed
the semi before it toppled,
a burnt pine dropping dead
in its tracks. It's November,
and the heat refuses to relent.
The cellular signal too faint
to tell my best friend
I won’t make his wedding.
A group of men in matching
khaki shorts and lacrosse shirts
crack open cans of Coors Light.
They lean against their Yukon
and light Pall Malls, in dire need
of more smoke than earth
can muster this far north
of the equator. There are cheers
and howls as an about-to-be-wed
couple sways to Sweet Caroline,
flakes of ash falling like divine confetti
on their heads. We trade tales
of what might be unfolding
at the front of the line,
of what we might be doing on an
otherwise ordinary Saturday.
We pretend a burnt tree collapsing
isn’t strange. That when we
press our accelerators again,
we will find a way out of here,
just as we always have.
