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.