I carried the deceptive weight of shadows to the lake,
tried to ditch it in a pile of rocks.

They held me slant.

I threw the gift—watery and dark.

Love, Truth & Beauty Best, I thought I thought.

How simultaneously my eyes are sick and bright.

The frost is in the field.

Dogs run with tags on, barking black tangles.

Sumac, willow. Buntings and swallows.

Milkweed broke open, releasing their stringy hearts.

No rations, no sirens. Impossible to walk straight
on the jagged rocks, the slippery humps of track.

A curve ahead. A curve behind.

The crows are kings of carrion; they scrape and caw.
Imperial in their hideousness, they break and cluster.

They break and settle their lustrous Selves two trees down the line.