Weather

Linnea Nelson

our hands began       to smell of smoke
somewhere between              the lexingtons of kentucky & virginia     

as we passed through       the surprise
ice crystals falling around us       like how we once conceived

of magic              colors whipped raw       on the landscape
& depths igniting      as we silently approached 

we told our friends
we were leaving the west       because of the weather 

there were other reasons
for the vanishing 

a kind of infidelity had occurred
we kept waking up       thinking of other       

places       shaken conscious by some
distant strain       started seeing our city       as a language 

we had not spoken
well enough

but mostly I left because              I had not been kind
to him there

I had called him      the worst name
I could think       stranger              my husband 

told me once as a child       he innocently called
a waitress bastard       

which is to say
what do we know     of nomenclature

& there is no word for the act       of disappearing
to somewhere you have not yet 

conjured a storm
but it is not a mystery        the mystery was how

even when we finally stopped              & stayed
where we had been going

I felt I was moving       at all times
even when still       I felt the weather

& myself       moving
towards him