to stranger. Each day nearly curls again

with coyotes (ubiquitous!) clasping the bones of our future

mornings. When we must reckon, we apologize badly, phrase fireworks

as fire, and we see the lit-up world for a vow

we never wanted. No answer will lessen our preoccupations

so we divide our nights into segments and shame

at the crude water and tether and replication

of our bodies, each of us in our glancing quiet or looming

quavers, this awful year, seeing how casually against us

it leans in the law. We’re unhinged, and a lot of us

threaten to move anywhere sane: the fjords and cold roads, needing travel

tips to find home. They say it won’t help to be full of anger:

not now not until the ice melts until hell is more than living without.