Heavy-bellied, even still. And arrival, a wind-

storm between houses while we slept. We woke

to fire instead. Ambulances in the distance.

Fines for the living who break laws

by leaving & arriving nowhere. How long

will this leaving continue? Horses, slain

in the pastures. Attacked by disease & blood

-ridden water. Copper, the corpses of the trees

next to drowned children in a creek behind

their mother’s house. How did cruelty become

timeless? Light, split by the pane that holds

the world apart from us. Rain, a memory

of rain. Repeating itself. Tomorrow

will be yesterday again, our daughter

trying to free herself from me in the pitch

each night. Hefting her smallness headfirst

toward oblivion. You must know by now

that we are lost. The lake with the illusion

of control, swelling the clouds until the sky

falls to become otherwise. I want no other numbers

now: one or one million. The wretched paths

through the woods. Redbirds in the oaks.

Clouds & moon sunken below the treeline. Wolves,

starved as sky near the mountains. It is duty

that keeps us some days. Not love. Sewn

to this gender, I am impossible. Left to rain

& ruin in some territory I don’t want to call

home. Here, traitorous is the wind. Hear

it wail at the panes. Hear it wane.