I Pack Her Suitcase with Sticks, Light the Tinder, and Shut the Lid, by Rob Schlegel

She used to sit on the forest floor
and I would cut her hair until it piled up
onto the ground, like ash.

Tonight, her name is a leaf covering
my left eye. The right I close
for the wind to stitch shut with thread

from the dress she wore into the grave
where the determined roots of the tree
are making a braid around her body.