ALT Dear— We come from abundance, each season bowed with rain. But here is the earth, eager to flame, the air like salt, thirsty even for the water we carry in our skin. New wanderers in this land, we do not know how to wait for water, have never waited so long for rain that every tree died, left to stand tinder. For now, I watch the shoulder burn, drive through the smoke that blots the mountains, and holds the old yolk of sun. I know nothing of fire, its reach, its spread, know only that every body makes its own ash, manages its own diminishing.

ALT WHITE DOG First snow—I release her into it— I know, released, she won't come back. This is different from letting what, already, we count as lost go. It is nothing like that. Also, it is not like wanting to learn what losing a thing we love feels like. Oh yes: I love her. Released, she seems for a moment as if some part of me that, almost, I wouldn't mind understanding better, is that not love? She seems a part of me, and then she seems entirely like what she is: a white dog, less white suddenly, against the snow, who won't come back. I know that; and, knowing it, I release her. It's as if I release her because I know.