CHATEAUGAY LAKE STEAMBOAT GAZETTE CO.

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Cracklin’ bark-scent air,
and a settler slipthin’ by,
swingin’ down slow—
land’s cut like ribboned eyeholes.

Fingers wavin’ like brushstrums,
skinnin’ shadows with a knife.
No man’s grave yet, no man’s dust.
Whistlin’ wolves playin’ in the cold light—
flicker-fur, death-trail dust.

Abenaki hums—
I heard it fallin’
through the trees,
comin’ up off the lake,
like an old woman’s breath under bark.

Sawdust neck-stretch whine,
sawbuck dreams breakin’ bones in the fog,
and Nathaniel’s toe-sting wiggle—
he’s got the ghostface twitch.
You can see the sweat crack,
but it’s moon milk, ain’t it?
Moon milk, slidin’ through the swamp bones.

Gone! Gone like a clock’s hand pullin’ away—
Whistle of the settler, a snap ’round the campfire.
Where’d his voice go?
Where’d his flesh spill?

Rewind
Night-blue claw-streak underfoot—
ground holds up stories,
tongues forked in the hollow-throat.

Mouths crackin’ down, grinning fur,
howlin’ in the sky’s black-sick eye.
Can you hear it yet?
Nathaniel’s lips twistin’ out—they’re all whispers.
The trees keep shudderin’ their bark-cough lungs.
Settler’s dream? Or wolfskin truth?
Two paths—
but only one breath
in the cold wind’s pulse.

Crack, crack! The settler gone like matchstick—
shadows between boots,
boots on the edge of dead air.

He whispers, he ain’t no settler no more,
just bloodroot shadow
skinnin’ under the skin—
feet too light to touch the ground
but his name echoes in the howl,
in the crack, crack, crack.

Fog-stitchin’ faces in the pines—
twelve wolves circle the heart,
but Nathaniel’s eyes burn across time
his shadow split by ghosts.
Can you see him?
His hands are runnin’ backward
like the stream inside his head.

He knows,
he don’t know,
he runs—
but the moon’s pullin’ tight.

What’s that sound?
Bones breaking,
laughter behind mist-lips.
Where’d he go, Nathaniel?
Where’d he go—
his breath’s paintin’ the sky.
Moon milk, paint-slick ice.

Wolves bend their bones like river bends—
moon spit
splatterin’ the trees,
cut glass, the settler’s gone.
Time’s runnin’ dry—
ain’t nobody callin’ back.

But the trees don’t forget.
The trees don’t forget.