The emptying moon tips
just above the treeline.
We are the only car on the road.
So dark the night, so close
the line of trees,
it is as if we had gone
under the earth, or the ill-
colored wick of moon was
the lantern astern on a ship
that had cut us adrift.
We move in another dimension.
Moths swim up in our headlights
like ghost fish darting
in black water. The silence
of acceptance of calamity
seeps through the glass.
Already your knuckles
look like coral on the wheel.
The children sleep in shapes
they will settle to in time
on the ocean floor, their bones
uncollected, like a necklace
broken in the sand.
What did any of it come to?
The only light is what
we carry with us.
There is salt in my kiss.