I’ve lost something and the land has gone

feral. I know how to make more

of less– I have seen the act

of nature choking on its own

overgrowth. A drowning inside

this tinning brokenness, a want,

sulfur-yellow, bird-quiet. I love

the same kinds of slander

myself. The smooth earth

unmarked for years. My own body missing

something too. No. It has nothing

to do with me. When left

to my own devices: a still soil poisoned,

barren. A field full of fledglings

rotting into the silt. When I walk my footprints fill

with coin-colored water. The wilted buds

on a graying branch curl in

like a child’s sleeping fist. I am mistaken

as another kind of quieting,

an algae-laced lake gone green again,

nothing notices. One duck, mid-lake,

preening grime from its feathers.

Doesn’t startle at all.