Left the butchered lilacs
and followed
Left grocery, oil change, other mouth to feed
When I could not keep up, I stopped, listened
to the woods, eyes scanning
the sky, the branches
split like an alphabet
Was wolf, not fox, fur
stuck to the frayed elbow of cedar
Was after the word for it,
chased into the drifts
Until, looking up,
there was no murder,
and the winter denned