at night every window 
warns: don’t go
you’ll be sorry

I pack with
my head down listening 
for the steady

hiss of water heater 
pine boughs worrying 
porch shingles

yes why leave
when I love the seasons 
of this house

will always think 
of snow as static 
over the gray lake

until wrens spring
up around the feeder 
on my sill

summer means the garden’s
dark ooze under
my nails

to wash in the clear 
skyfilled lake
long afternoons

but the wind has shifted 
pulls me another
place

and like all creatures
with hollow bones
I have to go