Airbag

Airbag Jonathan Treece

I’ve tried to find something important and let it bleed from the naked tip of my #2 Ticonderoga onto a sunny landscape of blank pages. My success has been limited.

So far, all I’ve come up with is something about butterflies. What was it you said to me? With your forehead pressed

against the window, drawing heart shapes in the fog, mouth agape, forcing your breath out as your steamy canvas dissipated,

you asked “What is winter for?” I shrugged and laughed. Flakes of frost shaped like cathedral spires melted

on the pink inchworm of your finger as you touched the tip of my nose. The fog evaporated from the pane of glass and I am tracing the smeared curves left behind. These memories

are a bit of hard apple wrapped in thorns that I keep trying to swallow. At least it was quick, not at all like cancer, but like a car wreck— all split glass and twisted metal, leaving no survivors.