Turtle By the Door

The bears and wolves are few; one threadbare widow mourning, two grays as consumptive as smoke. The large dwindle, their bodies grow more awkward, more at odds. The heavier beasts sway like drunks in the scant woods. Under a pelting dark they come. Beneath a stabbing ice, one by one- the animals. I listen to their shuffling, the scrape of a delving nail. They are stealing, they are burrowing led by the visceral prod of a shriveling wind. Hesitant paws withdraw as they near, a restlessness keeps them gnawing a middle ground. I crane my neck from its ribcage; they fall back and return, wanting, always wanting. The small creatures enter where cracks fill with moonlight they scuttle and hesitate, a little way, a little. I am Turtle, a makeshift thing, cloud-splashed and sullied. I sing back the needy shadows, sing back the devouring light in its little glass suns least both meet and both fail.