the winter first arrived as red
bird pecking facial features
out of skinning color into
the batten-down-sky
what is a hanging tree anyway
but hunger in the shape of vanishing fruit
where tinder girls
with flint heels kick
wintering—not seasonal but literal
the town is building fires
again where every body hangs low
as a bell tucked inside a forbidden word
should you see anything past fire
see hijab
see bones bare as the coiled bell
not lion’s drum, not cuckoo cymbal, but pealing
bells replace body replace
humming honeysuckle, replace
asphodel spreading its tarot parts among the living
replace church
courtyard ravished by wind-thirst
where bodies lay down like light
& unfasten bones from century
deep layers of snow & muzzle
S.Marie Clay is a PhD student at Western Michigan University where she teaches creative writing and currently serves as the head editor of Third Coast and Black Tongue Review and reads for New Issues Press. She is the author of Strange Couple from the Land of Dot and Line (Orange Monkey Publishing, 2014).