when the land has locked its jaw,
and starving recesses fight to get
loose, only the wind breaks free.
blowing away from what froze it
clear, watching January choose a
place to die alone.
rumbling in the pits of wolves'
stomachs, shadowing and shadowed
by the place January chose to die alone.
their darkening magic severe enough
to cast out what it casts--driven on all
fours through trackless acts of disappearance.
the trees see nothing of this, coldly burning
at their own stakes, having been stripped bare...
their congregations sway from time to time.
the fall and the spread of nothing, clear from
the throats of wolves...rising.
a sickly yellow arena, with last-leg effulgence
comes around to their howls, and hangs there
as the pithy of survival.