When he drove her up the mountain, insects of snow peeled over the moonlit hood. She counted, first notches on the radio dial then hides of strong trees glancing by.

Christmas is like silver sounds or the absence of sound, she thought. Of smokebreath. Of fur and glittering ice. She pushed
her hands at the fire in his ski house. Romantic. But something always spidery in his taste, his smell.

That night she felt him rise against the quilts and stare. His back a great sail. What’s in the corner, she asked.
She didn’t touch. What do you see.

Out back a sloping plot still with a bowl of dry bones for the dead dog. Ungulate tracks hushed over in wind. He fell back whispering. I won’t come back.
You’ll see me but I’m gone.

This was the binding crust of their heat.
Even in sleep, he nailed it.
Their affair was a soap rind, a brainless tongue. It began, that’s all.
It was a Sunday.