—YOU CAN’T GET FOUND IF YOU NEVER GET LOST

 

 

thaw

 

It’s winter and everyone I know is dead or dying. Nothing will thaw. The wind kisses me with her raw cough and chapped lips. Gnarled leaves scud down the lane like orphaned children with nowhere to go. The glass-topped lake, cubed now like a coffin made of ice, sits free of geese or even waves, while the beaver, who usually greets me, must be hibernating or else frozen and lifeless below.

You said leaving was the easiest part, that there’s kindness in every edge of cruelty. You said you loved me again. 

You said so many things you couldn’t possibly have meant.