The Woman Who Almost Became Winter by Heather Cadenhead
I blood-track questions like whitetail deer,
stalking every flicker of enigma, only
to circle right back where I started.
When the trail goes cold, I push
flushed cheek to earth and listen.
How long will stars bruise my body?
How many bones must turn to foam?
Am I a woman or a wetland?
I could become part of this, skeleton
melded to the same twigs that stab
the small of my back, my open palms.
I could stop fighting and merge
with the white morning mist,
the faint tracks leading nowhere.
Fingernails caked in cold silt,
I could become the glittering frost.
The woods begin to sway. You are one
of us now, they applaud. I breathe
their easy love for a moment, then
pull moss from my hair, decisive.
I do not curse the trees.
I only look for a clearing. Still,
I feel their disappointment.
I am not the frost, I whisper–
I’m made of skin and soul.
Even siren birdsong
cannot unmake me.