What can I tell you?  That I was not wholly
surprised?  That a man like him counts on enemies,
in paranoia even courts them?

In his death, the tension of our estrangement
did not lift.  Think how a horse, mouth emptied of bit,
given the entire pasture, will choose

to linger beneath the willow, as was the habit,
but without a rider grows confused, led to loneliness,
and will submit to any whip,

even the soft slow whips of the willow it loves.
I can tell you when my knee split
on cinderblock, piled on the porch for some never-

to-be-finished project, I clung to his cowboy shirt
because I wanted him to feel my need for him, though
I felt nothing, running my finger along the injury.

It was then I became less myself, less human, my new
coldness like strength.  So if you’re asking if I am
afraid to stay here, in this house, those men

on the loose, I can tell you no.  That fear is razed.
I suspect I will marry soon.  A man to enter the ledger
of pleasures I can count on:

walking through woods when snow makes a perfect
angle with my isolation, and telepathic owls
are all ears: comforting and indifferent.