love like death and all the rest—
I look up through candleflame to find
the woods ghosting in a sudden snow,
and as the wicks curl smoke
I enter the skyless squall.
In the thick and sticking snow
the work still runs behind my eyes.
I vanish as I go, first my shoulders,
then my chest beneath my breath,
then my thighs and arms swinging
over the hill dissolving until
I have disappeared completely.
Only my thoughts remain,
pulsing into the laden wind.
Only these lines make it home,
with you in them.
