A Mountain Lion Makes Ready

The butte in snow is a hand, palm up, to catch

stray bits of sagebrush, ghostly pines, to pass you

to the sky. In preparation, you forsake

the moon, traverse like hunger the high winter

pastures. Everything ascending leaves

its track—a red fox drops a chain of sprig-

in time. Winter is a slow magician, and you

leave little to illusion—willows dangle

your scent like so much ice; the ground nurses

blood of the one-eyed mule; even the shuddering pine

you climb at dawn unfurls gold filaments

over the yelping dogs each time you shift

a haunch. Below, a black creek cuts the world

you rule in two, and the arriving engine whines

like nothing you have heard or killed before.