Snow on black-barked trees —
I stare into the cold night
wrapped in your absence.

I hold out my hand,
its palm open and empty.
The hand is my gift.

Twisted juniper
tortured under hot sun
seeking hidden wells

On a long drive home from Michigan, I took a nap in an unlikely place:

Old cemetery,
white stones scrubbed of dates by wind.
I nap with the dead.

Black shadows gather,
a feathered corpse on the road,
a mourning of crows.