In the hottest bar in Wisconsin
the singer sings about blind white panic
and crystalline faces coming in from the cold.
The dying singer sings about love,
and I hear the band behind her
heaving quiet sighs into the lights.

In the morning, the red crows bang
into high-water pylons and fold back into the sky.
The pines are deep in snow, but they don’t know it yet.
The mild sounds: a moist wing, a finger in a trout,
the girl with the hissing lantern
comes down stairs like water under ice.
This is my worst season, because I’ll follow anybody.