An odor in the breeze—spruce; palosanto; silver dust

of a hard freeze. This isn't love-love, I say back. But

what do I know—except

            I've gotten close enough to too far

enough times to know

           it is possible to pull back, and for that thrill

to be enough. But what damage that moment does, the having of it

—the halving of it—again and again in the mind,

I cannot say. How leaves,

             no matter how long they soak in the river,

will never turn truly black—though how could I be sure of this, either,

without staying the weeks to watch.

As the day drains

         out the window, I become more and more

the focus of my own gaze. Light leaches from every

silvered feather; every bone-bright twig

now grey as silt—the great equity

                of darkness coming down.

How you can find that what you believed was singular, and needed

to be, is not—

       This, too, a trick of light or distance—

the burst cattail no cattail at all, but a stalk

of lush grass weighted with snow.

This, too—how could you.