how the white snow
swallowed those who came before me.
They sing from the earth.
This is what happened to the voices.
They have gone underground.
I remember how the man named Fire
carried a gun. I saw him
burning.
His ancestors live in the woodstove
and cry at night and are broken.
This is what happens to fire.
It consumes itself.
In the coldest weather, I recall
that I am in every creature
and they are in me.
My bones feel their terrible ache
and want to fall open
in fields of vanished mice
and horseless hooves.
And I know how long it takes
to travel the sky,
for buffalo are still living
across the drifting face of the moon.
These nights the air is full of spirits.
They breathe on windows.
They are the ones that leave fingerprints
on glass when they point out
the things that happen,
the things we might forget.