Squares of moon across bare plank;
dust the color of ghosts.
Windows webbed and spiked like teeth.
Snow drifted in the hearth.
In a breath, dust lifts and swirls
through the room like mist.
In the stillness,
a child rasps and heaves.
I rub my hands against the cold,
feel from memory and from genes,
the calluses, the deep joint pain,
the odor of frozen, plowed earth.
Outside, coyotes gather
in the snow, baying
at the moon.
