Nothing else to do, they take a drive
to nowhere in particular, but away
from the suburbs. The car, at first,
protests from its deep chill within, but
slowly, assuredly, finds comfort
in its own manufactured heat.

He takes the wheel, she navigates,
but, mile after mile of snowed-in farms
and woods, the sameness tires her,
she falls asleep, taking the map with her.
He just keeps going and going,
taking each road like a child’s game
of which hand has the candy.
Details drifted over,
the world is contours,
a hill here, gully there,
a far white undulation.

He thought his neighborhood
was under winter’s brumal thumb
but there, at least, the people
with their shovels, foggy breath, fight back.
Here, the farmers leave their fields in idle,
and trees subsume to crystal shapes.
Without human intervention, the season is the land.

It will be night soon.
More worry for his broken compass.
He nudges her arm to wake her.
The car brakes from time to time
but it’s the emptiness that must have a stop.

He wonders should he turn back.
The clouds are gray and low.
Flakes adorn the road with promise of more to come.
He’s lost.
It’s up to her, not these surrounds, to find him.
How lovely she looks,
like something newly fallen,
fresh and unconscious as the snow.