Driving this morning around the bend Where maples bronze the asphalt This time of the year, I saw

A young couple walking hand in hand, unhurried, Laughing, savoring each other’s heat – this heat Which makes certain plum trees bloom

Even in this cold. Those ghostwhite tipped Branches, bare otherwise, perhaps approximate The first blush of love, which may pass

Or deepen – this I shall not know – in that which Made Justin plaster every utility pole with A notice about his lost old dog, Smokey.

I don’t have the maps to this still unexplored Continent. So I blindly plunge into the downtown Canyons, shrouded in fog, letting this thought

Bind me to that couple, to Justin and his lost dog, And thus perhaps eventually arrive at that Final destination.