Four winters
since I drove north alone
every morning I walk out
into the heavy freeze
surprised the snow holds me
that I don’t disappear
into the ground
winters here run so deep
the salt in my blood feels a thousand years old.

Old-bone seeds
sleep hard in my body
far beyond the swallows
and past the night sky
working their slow, bitter cure in the dark.

I can feel the tight knots of sinew
snap against wet shale
and I let the sorrow go
the fault lines
of this old body open
to a sudden riverlight
and for a moment I stand up whole.

I’ve tended a stove out here long enough to know
a fire eating its own draft eventually dies.