The Lesser Wolves

we reason with the void. fraying threads slipping loose from their needles. 

we wear the avalanche in soiled gowns. dancing carelessly to the music that has stopped. 

stymied by the resiliency of our grief. orphans in the teeth of want. 

the distance becomes us. rattling screen doors in the wind. 

we stand in the rain. strays chewing on locked doors. 

we draw our maps in the mud. stained by our weakness. 

collecting the world in the slips of paper that we've torn from the flesh of strangers.