The Last Days of Summer Before the First Frost

Here at the wolf’s throat, at the egress of the howl, all along the avenue of deer-blink and salmon-kick where the spider lets its microphone down into the cave of the blackberry bush—earth echo, absence of the human voice—wait here with a bee on your wrist and a fly on your cheek, the tiny sun and tiny eclipse. It is time to be grateful for the breath of what you could crush without thought, a moth, a child’s love, your own life. There might never be another chance. How did you find me, the astonished mother says to her four-year-old boy who’d disappeared in the crowds at the music festival. I followed my heart, he shrugs, so matter-of-fact you might not see behind his words (o hover and feed, but not too long) the bee trails turning to ice as they’re flown.