Where the Wolves Howl

The wind has taken your name,
buried it deep in the frost-laced pines,
where the wolves move like shadows,
where the night is thick with hunger.

I do not speak it.
Not here, where the air is too sharp,
where the ice snaps like bone beneath my boots,
where the river wears its silence
like a veil of glass.

You are far—
past the ridge where the storm coils,
past the arctic current that drowns
even the most faithful wings.

Still, my hands remember.
The heat of you beneath them,
the fire you left beneath my skin,
the way your breath once traced my ribs
as if mapping a place
you never meant to leave.

I press my palms into the snow.
It burns, but not like you.
Not like the ruin you left behind.

The wolves are calling,
but I am not ready to follow.
Not yet.

Not until the frost in my chest
learns how to kill the last of your fire.