The ground has not yet frozen this year’s end and yet
the grass cracks underfoot
easily as a bone. Its music is unfallen.
Sun sets orange on the unquoted remnant.
The man will be happy in California.
He is coastlike,
rocky and abrupt
unsheltered from the ripped seam of wind.
Unwritten.
Once I thought things came back to haunt.
Truly, they leave.