Jeffery Oliver

Against what kinds of threats must the psyche
Of the Arctic child protect itself in sleep?
– Pattiann Rogers

Our logic is the shrew
burrowing tunnels in the snow.

Ravens in winter roost hundreds
to a cottonwood, shaking their feathers,

slowing their hearts, black on black.
Each remembers how he held

the sun in his dark beak,
understands that all light

is stolen. Wintering animals
live as theives. Listen:

the best conceit for frailty
is our own bodies.

We steal our way through winter,
stumble our way through spring, agog

then, at how skin exposed isn’t bitten,
how the sun keeps generous hours.

Step out of the car and walk to budding trees.
Now sit on a log and unlace your boots.

Give your keys and shirt
to a bush and keep walking.

Apples don’t grow here.
We have no gardens but these.