The wind is fucking

cold in Michigan.

It rattles the frozen

fir trees and moans,

the ghost of an ancient

god anxious to reclaim

his chunk of world.

Snow makes a white

body bag for the trees.

Small animals are vandals,

stealing what food they can eat

then hiding out between

the toes of wooden corpses.

The sun is afraid

to reach all the way

down to warm the ground,

unsure that it would even thaw.

Summer might have been nice here,

when the trees are reborn,

the animals are citizens

and the sun reunited with the earth,

but we came in winter,

opened a window

and let the wind blow back

what nature gave us,

sleeping alone beside each other.