The Winter Circle

The night got a bird caught in its throat.I couldn't be sure that I wasn't dying so

I tried to go to sleep, which is a space I likebecause it is a space where I can be

without me. Dear night, you are a mysterybecause our best prayers told us so. Night

with the far light for its eyes. Night folded overthe body in the bed where I leave me. Dear

night, I complain. I am a bad customer. What you havesold me is just what I asked for: a glittered expanse

of beauties so distant I know I can't reach them,an absence in which I don't have to try.