DURING COVID, SHE DREAMS OF LEAVING A MASKED MAN
and then after, telling him why
Because we were the bones
of beesand too fragile
to last beyond the hive:
that basket of simplebuzzing
Because everything about salt
and jab was preciselywhat I liked
Because your skin and mine
had becomea contamination
Because I could stroke the air
more readily than I couldyour throat
Because I wanted to sing
you to sleepwith my fingers
Because the nights droned on
like fire alarms: terriblebut necessary
Because you were an everyday
apple, becomea near-consumed fruit.
ARCTIC TRAVELER
for the fox that walked 2,700 miles across melting ice
Little fox, how long will you stay
in my imagination, steadily
traipsing toward dawn? Put
down your silvered coat
and jaw, mined from your den
in Norway. Lick your nailed paws. For
millennia, you’ve been stored,
my needle-nosed plier, among
hammers of your Arctic
home: antlered reindeer,
clawed bears, and weaponized
salmon, flung hard
as peppered snow, made errant
by dirt. But when ice warms,
it reconstitutes
in darts — as sharp
as you, brave tooth. So
what did you prise
from home’s belly
when you left it for colder
cold: its myths of fish? What
taste kept you slipping
across continents, meted
in miles, from your glossed
caps in sunlight, all
summer — to this
Canadian post? Soldier
dodging an end to your
epoch among Swedes,
Danes, and Finns (and their bêtes
noires: the Russians), unhook
your red tongue. Then wash
till night turns you
into a sickle, an almost
closed o. Sleep in my stunned
mind, softer than your body —
bent on glaciered roads.