Residue

I’m not the one.

There is naked air falling
over the rough ground,
frost-heaved into longing
and regret, the sorrow

of small birds, plump
and frosty-beaked.

There are wolves, rough
scavengers, grizzled,
thin, silent as lost pups,
unbirthed through
the hungry dark months.

There is an empty place
in the land, that hollow
where we put
what we thought we had;

the earth has eaten love.

Rachel Westfall
February 17, 2011