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A few years ago, I traveled to Skovsbostrand on the island of Funen in my native Denmark to write in a solitary residence by the sea. It was winter, too cold to sit in the garden among the priestly Eranthis and flocks of snowdrops, their...

One by one the neighborhood songbirds visited
and stripped us of our brightest threads of pain

carrying them off for purposes that we couldn’t
quite fathom. So we got a dog, felt a little better.

When Marg lived in the house, there was a whole other house in the basement where her grandparents lived in the summer. They were from Ireland, the McCabes. They were royalty, Marg thought. That’s how she felt about them.

Ixchel, I feel you crossing. Night womb. Tell me where the seeds go.

The third time I go to meet the devil, I pay better attention to the legend and visit on Halloween. The day is either cliché or the deep human instinct that there are times in the year when it is wise to fear.

Alex, do you think God appreciates us
this time of year, going out

in knit maroons, black leather? I’m still no good
at smoking but I liked best the part of your party

Starlings know to veer. Anatomically attuned to each premonition of each starling. Sacred space.

Okay so when we were little playing in the woods
every time we heard a gunshot hollow and clear

my brother would clutch his chest and fall over
every single time and it worked every time

Not an uncommon winter tale. It goes different ways but always starts the same: Two men, friends since childhood, still young and strong, lose their way in a snowstorm that they believed they could out-ski. Night falls; they don’t return to...