She's on life support. Racing to get there,
his Jaguar fishtails on the frozen highway.
She was a beauty and elusive as the future,
his mother, usually traveling on his birthday.

He felt he couldn't fly, had to touch dirt
every inch of the way. To fly would be
to unpeel too fast the onion of his hurt.

She'd call. He wouldn't answer. He was busy.

Now it's ice he notices, gray molars
locking to dark bluffs, the way ice locks his heart
in steely winter logic. Then sun shimmers
on ice, the lock breaks, and love flows. Relief,
oh melting! as he steers toward his mother.

The syllogism that still might end in grief.