For the span
of relentless winter
all menace redirected.
Keen, naked,
slow in turning.
Follow, fickle maywing.
In a makeshift infirmary
in a forest laundry
he resembles Mantegna’s Christ.
A future tense of
bated, undrawn sides.
Fable, begin.
In the light of winter,
the still land,
death’s
inspiration.