Roadside stranded, he keeps the need for her in his teeth. Smokes out an hour of shakes as the rearview clouds. Then comes the darkness the animals know. They open mouths to his cause. And every tongue like a spurring drum brings snips, hics, and snivers to knee him down a thistle bank. On and into blood trails, he hunches, snorts cold grass of animal bed for spines, for pushing on, for laying down under pines so white the moon can't help but clean, every little needle from her name.
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