Cold nights outside the taverns in Wyoming br pickups and big semis lounge idling, letting their br haunches twitch now and then in gusts of powder snow, br their owners inside for hours, forgetting as well br as they can the miles, the circling plains, the still town br that connects to nothing but cold and space and a few br stray ribbons of pavement, icy guides to nothing br but bigger towns and other taverns that glitter and wait: br Denver, Cheyenne. br br br Hibernating in the library of the school on the hill br a few pieces by Thomas Aquinas or Saint Teresa br and the fragmentary explorations of people like Alfred br North Whitehead crouch and wait amid research folders br on energy and military recruitment posters glimpsed br by the hard stars. The school bus by the door, a yellow br mound, clangs open and shut as the wind finds a loose br door and worries it all night, letting the hollow br students count off and break up and blow away br over the frozen ground.