A Letter

Is Fairbanks too far? Frozen city

state stretched back toward the nipple

 

of the earth, poles tilting with the weight

of all we run from. Fish club under an open

 

shed – pans of heated oil, streamside, spruce

green down hills and hills away from the log

 

trailers, out from the purr of machines and slopes

of getting down the mountain. No one here

 

is ready to leave, we huddle beneath branches

weighted in weather, toll our insides for the Iditarod

 

that none of us will run. Mush, mush,

Nome to Seward. Mush. Jim’s bar turns smoke

 

from the chimney and from a distance has the rusted

pull of the last place on earth. We gather beneath

 

taxidermy, wring cheer from swollen mugs – ice

reflects from a lighted road. Our city lights, city lights.