This poem first appeared (in a slightly different form) in Flycatcher: A Journal of Native Imagination in June, 2014:

Autumn Reliquary

Into the still, cold sky, a china teacup
spills its light.  Mesquite trees gather
at the front porch, bare arms lifted,
slender wrists braceleted in mistletoe.

We sit outside in an emptiness
that runs for miles, bundled
against the year’s wane, wondering
what it is to end.

Is it true the dying need to be held?
Around us day lies down to the embrace
of darkness, mesquite roots sink
into the clutch of flint earth.

A drained moon nests deeper
into the night, which needs nothing,
having grown too vast to hold.