On the Road to Lake Myvatn

We stopped off for a bite of

what else? Smoked fish on rye—

hverabraud, the bread baked underground

in geothermal steam ovens—

in a semi-converted cow shed. Half

café, half milking parlor. It was held together,

that bread and trout, with a skim of white

butter, and was eaten (I learned

by looking around) with a fork

and knife. So there’s the volcano’s gray hat

(long dormant) out one window

and here are the cows peering in another.

Haunch to haunch in the hay-scattered

room next door. Back outside

I peeked back in

beneath my cupped hands

and one swung her big head around

to eye me up too.

A Snapshot

it’d be impossible for us

to have taken—because it shows

the two of us taking it

all in via the rolled-down

window or through

the windshield like a movie—

black sand desert a herd

of horses on the loose

that waterfall and that

one and over there one

more mountain and only

this once the two

of us both in the picture

getting on getting by

a snapshot really

of the rest of our life