The woods are hollow. The snow
crisp but too full of sharp echo.
Whiteness cascades, the sparkle
distracts: all that suffocating
cover. But that’s insulation,
they say. That’s the shell
of protection. Subnivean.
Rest assured, warm mud lusts
beneath all frost that dazzles.
Really? What a stereotype
of winter: the pristine over
the primal. Spare me.
Layer upon layer as frosted
shield of silence when silence
is just another sign for what was
removed. White out / wipe out.
I miss the sound of wolves.
Of bobcat chortle. Of backyard
coyotes yapping over their field-
mouse find. Yipping like hurrah.
Not yelps in the clamp of trap,
of capture, of final confinement. No.
A celebration. Here I am. Here, I exist.