I slip into lamb’s ear,
Velvet all that I am,
Lung and vein,
Wake open completely
In shell and cotton roots.
These carnelian woods
Clutch me into creature,
My eyelids into armor.
Only there is snow
To tell me why I am here.
I bookend the eventide
With a noctilucent cloud,
A silhouette cradling the era
Of my body’s night.
Now firethorn in the garden
Is audience to the winter day,
Listening to the wings
Of a bird for weather,
And this moss, all over, swelling
The chamber of your tomb.
Erin Case, Out Of The Cold (collage)