Why we decided no headlights

through Snoqualmie Valley dark
early March after the hospital

visit to my open-heart grandfather

I will not understand, yet

we drove into that unspoken dare

a good thirty seconds

until we couldn’t take not seeing

illuminated roadside grasses

parallel the parallel yellow lines.

Our eyes like kaleidoscopes twisted

sparse moonlight off sparse road signs.

Still unknown to each other, years later

we’ll leave this country together

for lands where we become

the only people we know

after towers and grandfathers fall

historical clues and species erased.

We still won’t ask what it meant

when the headlights clicked back on —

no flinch reaction swerve or brakes

could’ve helped avoid our collision

with the shepherd dog running happy blind

across the valley road for home.

Katy E. Ellis is our Poet in Residence for June