In final days, the sound of music. The smell of salt, softened. Fawn eyes, stains. The weeping, the willow, and the trucker: wavering leg, soft-bellied and tender in warm metal box. For Emma, again. Fizz of brilliant sprout each spring, caskets of cartilage each October. The number of moons needed to harvest a word, and how we only learned to fly because one afternoon two brothers saw a bird and wondered how to model its wings. Buckling snow, and the aching songsmith in hunting cabin alone—tapping feet into grieving floorboards, wolves and ghosts onto thin timber-frame. -Autumn Doucette