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119 Raven —Fairbanks, Alaska, November 1905 I want to ask you what it is like to stand solid against the snow, to swallow the short daylight, and preen yourself into night. Woodstove black. Feathers, feet, eyes, the curve of your beak: one mind. I move beneath you weighted by my borrowed skin— wool skirt, gray ruff, blue coat, leggings, thick knit hat. Hauling firewood, I hear your call, wordless, unfrozen, between the trees; then, the dry slice of flight above my head before you disappear. 120 I see your belly, your wings, their cloak of certainty, your unified purpose, and I want to ask you how to survive winter along this frozen river, but I only muster the hollow chock of log on log as I stack the sled. My body, its cobbled mess, gangly, lacking grace, sputters, stops, then goes again. You glow, live coal, living cinder, fleeing each evening to the dark hills, the crooked rookery of spruce where hundreds of black eyes dream the same smoldering dream. ...

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