Silence unfurled,

the moonlit road we drove
wound like a silvery serpent
constricting around the girth
of the mountain.

inside your car, we watched

as over the valley, electricity
pierced the purple cumulonimbus
like a needle hurriedly sewing
the sky to the distant foothills
with quick white stitches,

while in the front seat
of our four-door universe,

the darkness obeyed the gravity
that we proposed and
weighed on our tongues
like sandbags to the earth
which allowed us both to pretend that

we had nothing to say.