Whiteout

The world has stopped trying to be a whole place.

I walked out to the mailbox and lost my own house

behind a curtain of wet, hanging wool

that turned my eyelashes into heavy, silver combs.

The streetlights are dim, yellow bruises

pressing against the ribs of the dark,

and my neighbor’s porch light is a sick halo,

swelling and blurring into the gray.

There is a relief in the lack of a horizon.

I don't have to look at the hills or the highway

or the distance I’m supposed to be traveling.

It’s just me and the damp concrete of the curb,

and the silence of a town that has finally

decided to keep its mouth shut.