You always leave me at a random spot
far beyond the snowmobile hub,
without map, compass, rifle, food,
your goodbye-hug slipping east.
You tear out as if after a bite,
I start walking in the tame slush.
Wish I could talk to a reindeer dwarf
grazing along gravel and stones
to avoid thought holes and pitchfork combs
yet I’m alone, my headlamp plays the moon.
Stewed perception of what’s real,
what’s going by the patterned bruise.
Some bet I should find a safe grave
but I’m too soft to go through, too alive.
At the ridge the shape of a diaper pin
I take off my insulated gear,
my icebreaker merino wool,
and lie on my back, my trunk
flat on moss. The frost is calm,
almost like a beak, the Out fits the In.
No one follows me in this stationary hike.
I keep stretching, wherever I look
I see slopes of my naked skin,
dizzy and cold for my fingers to sweep.
Then I’m stuck in pancake ice,
a rock lifting on my chest like baby crave.
I admit I’m lost. That’s what you need,
without losing it’s difficult to find.
Without breath how could I choke,
how could I ask where you were
while away. Closer and closer,
snow to dress. I’m melting,
already longing back to freeze.