Wilder

She lives and teaches in the Twin Cities.

The grief did not bear down on us. Nor did the panic, nor the despair

The earth turned more slowly now. Nights were days long, and days were overcast with coal. S

Somewhere, space was collecting all these lost things.

Rooms of animal suits, rooms of hooves, of hoses. Dark drains. One by one the others put on their palomino coats.

Grubby violet dusk. Everywhere, the tongue-tang of rust. Everywhere, endless grass.

Remember that you can return to this place whenever you’d like. We remembered. We felt very comfortable and at ease. We were climbing a gentle hill made of tires.

We started eating soil to anchor them in our chests. We swallowed pebbles.

Land was ebbing faster than anyone thought it would. Every morning there was a new, farther stretch of blue.

The purple sky was clear.