is small-town ugly. I catalogue as you drive:
              one motel. one bar named Trapper’s.
              one ice cream shop, closed for the season.
I tick them off my fingers. There’s not even snow to soften
the stoplight’s slow click, the sidewalks stained with salt.
There is ice, however, and I slip getting out of the car.
It’s Sunday. Rose City’s one diner bustles
with older folks getting breakfast after church.
I walk past a glass case filled with bread pudding,
cinnamon cake, peanut butter pie, and remember
how sweet you smelled in the shower this morning,
like cedar, sandalwood, when I kissed the back of your neck,
the soap dribbling through my fingers, and wanted
to make a forest out of you before the water turned cold.
I cross my legs under the table. The waitress fills my cup
with coffee as the man behind you readjusts his tie.
I poke through the creamer pods. You touch my knee,
absent-mindedly. There is space between breath here.
Outside, the birds lift themselves from a cornfield.
We turn as they move from the earth: ordinary creatures
twisting spirals through a shapeless sky.