A Winter Count depicted important events 
    in Native American tribal life each year. 

In last night’s dream I held 
between thumb and index finger
of each hand, the pale wing of a moth.

Powder stained my fingertips
like dust, as I opened that symmetry
into the light.

Now I let the insect go, still tethered 
to my heart, that calendar of blood, 
and watch it beat its wounded wings
to yet another Winter Count

What of angels, if there be angels?

Coat hangers untwist in Mother’s hands
to be reshaped for my two oaktag wings. 

What of the storm in this room?

Feathers circle my head—
a whirlwind sent by God
while faithful Mother labors
to catch and glue them in place.

And do I then, rapt in white, ascend.

Snow falls heavily outside
and someone rises into it.

And why do I think now of bats
opening their webbed membranes
to the night, sailing overhead as if
they were ashes from dead stars?

And why do all wings have shadows?

If there be angels, let them descend
from their nests of dark matter
to meet me.

If I leave my body,
can I burrow beneath the dirt,
become a blind, segmented tube 
that eats and excretes as I turn the soil,
crumbs marking my passage?

If I leave my body, 
can I enter the crystals of water
in a winter lake becoming ice, 
lose myself in flowing or freezing,
un-amazed at the singular shapes
I now assume?

Today, a blizzard beckons, 
the swirling flakes moaning diffuse, diffuse, 
as I press my hands to the cold glass
and my white bones answer.