x "Alive in the slippery moonlight,
how easily you managed
to hold yourself upright
on your small heels.
You emerged from your image
on the smooth fields
as if held back from flight by a hinge.

I used to find you
balanced on your visible ghost
holding it down by a corner. The blind
stain crawled, fawning, about you.
Your body staked its shadow like a post.
Gone, you leave nothing behind,
not a toe to hold steady or true
your image which lives in my mind."
— The Loss by Anne Stevenson

x "For weeks the wind has been talking to us,
Swearing, imploring, singing like a person.
Not a person, more the noise of a being might make
Searching for a body and a name. The sun
In its polished aurora rises late, then dazzles
Our eyes and days, pacing a bronze horizon
To a mauve bed in the sea. Light kindles the hills,
Though in the long shadow or Moelfre, winter
Won’t unshackle the dead house by the marsh.
Putting these words on paper after sunset
Alters the length and asperity of night.
By the fire, when the wind pauses, little is said.
Every phrase we unfold stands upright. Outside,
The visible cold, the therapy of moonlight."
— The Wind, The Sun and the Moon by Anne Stevenson