Here nothing calls to me.
Here all I lose I shed
off season, letting the wind
have its bite, letting the chill
take a fingertip or two. Here
I leave my fear of what falls
with the night, come
comforted by the winter dark
having no want of me. I wade
to wincing in the black
pitch and roll of evening.
I wade to my thighs in the
freeze, my hips too deep,
silence now a murmur
nearer my name.
Here I will find what drifts
with the snow, or is obscured.
The gooseflesh. The hair
on end. The exposure,
the warning, the loss of feeling
where it used to matter. What rises
with the night after I have been
left? An ask or a need
and me now numb to it;
the air a mouth all gums.
A sound almost
my name, and nothing
still calling to me, fangs
blurred soft as fur.