Cloven

After a certain age she starts
receiving mail from funeral 
homes or columbariums. 

But when did the terror begin? 
At night, they lay her down 
to sleep under a tent of stories:

first, a family all together
and wrapped like a present
on Christmas morning.

Then an ice storm takes
one or all of them, or a boat
disappears behind a wall

of high water. The earth
is so alive, murmuring apology
each time it takes or ruins,

each time it coughs up 
rivers of mud. And so, in grief, 
the woman gathers her skirts 

and walks into the wood. 
They speak of her as if 
it was she who took 

the last light from that 
home; as if she could know
how to make the moon

stop pilfering the silver 
in a poor box. Will she live
to see those debts paid off? 

Exile means to be here but
so far away,  stumbling along-
side the animals in the hills.

Sometimes, she can barely see
the outline of her own shadow 
beneath the screen of trees.