By Marissa Coon Rose
How the snow always seemed to follow. How the ice
crackled over filaments of branches left bare
after a storm. That he remained human,
unfused with the mechanistic grunt of his eighteen-wheeler,
only by the bright
stirring he felt for those trees.
He says, it was near midnight, a cargo run
on second shift–from Indy to some hamlet flung
and stuck into the midland cornfields–
when the deep sky clouded, opened
with a white-out. A hive of snow
busted, angry flakes like a buzz
displaced. Road lines cowered and shrank
and disappeared. I kept from driving into the ditch
with my load of 12,000 pounds only
by the grace of the iced branches, reflecting.
How snow and ice are only cousins, split like species.
How four-wheel drive can be like a religion,
if you put your faith in it. Same as the cars in my rear view
that night. I glanced back and saw a line of ten
led by the glow of my blinkers, a long chain
of night blindness, people bound white-knuckled
to the steering wheel. How we are always
bound to find a band in the darkness,
hoping someone sees the brightness
better than we can. ■
This story was produced in partnership with Indiana Humanities’ INseparable project. Read more stories in the series here.
Marissa Coon Rose lives and works in Muncie, Indiana. Her work has recently appeared with Tuck Magazine, Likely Red Press, Literary Mama, and the Raleigh Review. In 2016 she was chosen as the representative poet for Delaware County in Mapping the Muse: A Bicentennial Look at Indiana Poetry.
Cover image: K&I Bridge over the Ohio River, Looking NNW from bluff. Photo by William Alden (Creative Commons).
Belt Magazine is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. To support more independent writing and journalism made by and for the Rust Belt and greater Midwest, make a donation to Belt Magazine, or become a member starting at $5 per month.
