At first when we return, the animals
do not know us. It’s as if they’ve forgotten

humanness—our noise, our cars
and guns. At dusk, the deer

press close to screened windows,
and their breath trembles

the emptiness suspended
between those fine wires. The musk

of skunks leaks beneath the door
like stripes of light

from clouds in a Constable study: silken pour
of rose-pink over yellow, a hue that refuses

to long for God. The first
day back, I stand beneath

the felled boxelder’s ghost. Now my shadow
will no longer merge

with its shadow, then detach itself
as noon unfurls its hot,

bright shawl. Soon the woods
will rise from their knees

to enfold rabbit and bear
back into their larger dark. Rain

will come sudden and hard, vanishing
instantly into the porous earth. And then

the day will be blue again, blue
and ruined, and the animals

will remember us
and know to be afraid.

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Prompt: Write into the loss or death of a more-than-human being, and how this loss has changed things for you. The being could be one you felt intimate with, or one that seemed more distant. How is this absence felt in your everyday life?

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Kasey Jueds is the author of two collections of poetry, both from the University of Pittsburgh Press: Keeper, which won the 2012 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and The Thicket. She lives on ancestral Lenape land in a small town in the mountains of New York State.