A single cardinal sits in the bird feeder on the wooden pole listing in the old woman’s yard. I pass this way often, where she sits on the glassed-in porch with her friends, a colored paper turkey pressed decoratively against one window.

Her boots have trampled down the snow around the feeder. My eyes search for a fallen crimson feather, but there’s nothing — just a flap of the bird’s wings, and then the bird’s gone.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.

Let the wind die down. Let the shed

go black inside. Let evening come.