I BRING A SMALL OFFERING TO HIS GRAVE four days later: a small bottle of clear liquor, and the single white antler of a deer I found dead on the roadside, its eye open, reflecting sky, a fleck of blood on the pupil. The fleck of blood is a red so deep it is almost black. I imagine my insides that color and crystalline.

I LIVE IN MY BODY IN MY CABIN AND WAIT for the days to pass and pass and pass, nothing changing, just the way the wind blows the ache inside of me around like dust, and breathe and hurt and hurt, my god, a life of pain pressing sharp against me whether I was knotted or loose as weakened rope.

MY MOTHER CALLS. SOPHIA CALLS. IT IS all the same:

“How are you?”

“Are you OK? You never call.”

I keep it pleasant. I keep it light.

“It’s so beautiful here. I am so glad I have this cabin.”

I imagine myself digging graves to stay calm.

I BEGIN TO FIND THE SMALL BODIES OF birds on the road, the bleached fingers of their bones jutting out wrong, carcasses stuck on the final note of their song. I look at the patterns of their sprawled wings and envy their stillness.

THERE IS SPACE FOR ME, SO I GET THE shovel. I walk to the backyard in my best red dress and stand right beside my father, next to the pile of meats and liquors and antlers I have left for him, which are slowly being eroded by the weather.

I DIG AGAIN, THIS TIME SLOWLY, SPREADing my energy out over the day. I dig with precision, a machine, a perfect rectangle glowing in my mind. I dig without my knot, so my dream was not exactly a prophecy.

DOWN, DOWN INTO THE EARTH, THE repetition of my body against the land. The mound of dirt next to me is big, a mass, the friendly scent of earth in the nostrils.

By the time I am finished, the fat bright body of the sun has begun its drop, that purple twilight emerging above my head.

VISION

We are young. We are holding hands on a cold bright spring day. We are swimming in the river. We are making love in the Meat Quarry for the first time. We are eating a burger and splitting the fries. We are walking through the art museum. We are warm in bed. We are eating cakes and then kissing. We are standing beside the lake. We are eating a beautiful dinner. We are reciting facts to each other. We are twined around each other on a Sunday morning. We are reciting vows to each other. We are looking at our daughter. We are growing old, side by side.