—after W.S. Merwin

In the wind-beguiled lavender where the deer
saunter on spindled limbs, between the ponderosa pines

and long grass, we call out for our missing pet.
The sun warps the hills in a sharp blue haze

that pulls the ground heavenward for miles.
When I split off into the brush, my son screeches and

a magpie jolts from its perch, wings terror-bent
against the sky. I walk further into the hawk-full

hills but now both children are crying, ousting all
the wild things from their dirt holes and branches.

Something stirs in me: how easy it might be
to disappear—into the jaws of a bear, the memory

of a creek. We place food bowls out each night, watch
a bobcat slink past the eye of our deck camera, its tail

a trail vanishing into the night. Morning comes
like it does, and the bowls are empty, draped

in a small blessing of mist. It’s been a week now,
and the children have stopped asking after it.

Just a week, but I guess I’m fickle, too—the light
early with swallows frivolous in their darting.

The days are long and strange with absence and
what chooses to return. I might have kept the door closed

had I known how fast something can bolt from
its bed, its life, its home. I step back into the hills,

no calling this time, just the sound of grass remembering
a small and wild thing that once passed through.