Pilgrimage

Sutras of these plaited nights, this sorrow that I hold

walking barefoot in the snow. Words of a ghosted out
invocation, embers of a coda glinting from my throat.

On the hillside, the trees ride into cold fires as idols,
and I tear into the chorale of weeping leaves.

I call on the deities to revive the mnemonic
of your hair, splints of moonlight on my shoulders

and the untangling of voices before flesh. Your rise
a fricative shadow, gliding past. I pray for it to stop.

There’s no answer from the gods. Only the slow grasp
of wind as it blinds. The swish of coming undone.

Published in Crab Orchard Review, Vol. 20, No. 1