Shaped

The wind must have changed.

Pruning season, my dead limbs fall

Lifeless, dry, beloved.

I grasp the death that thralls.

I hold it against myself, my soul,

Pressed against where it was severed

But death doesn’t grow.

It can’t be grafted or tethered.

At once, the limbs appear foreign.

Tossed back to a shallow grave,

I shuffle on, weightless, sore,

I wonder what the loss has saved,

I wonder at my design.