Random

We got drunk together after
all warm faces and hot rum
in a tiny dive bar
in the next small town
and yet still shaking
with cold and adrenaline
probably both briefly
considered finding a room
and making frantic love
to celebrate
but then we didn't
because we barely knew
each other and thought
it might prevent our
falling in love
for real, later
if it came to that;
so we tried instead
in the dim warmth
of a small town tavern
to shake the cold
and what we'd seen
tried to understand why
we now felt so
shatteringly
unfairly
crazily
randomly
alive
tried to bury the thought of
yawing our way slowly down
that savagely icy highway
and coming up abrupt on
two cars smashed head-on
in the howl of horizontal snow
one crumpled on its roof
front wheel not yet entirely
stopped
radiator still streaming
steaming antifreeze
and then in the silence
of a sudden strange lull
all of that bright blood
soaking the icy ground
by a shattered driver's door.