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.
