Woodcutters, three, sleep in
a freezing forest, warm
canisters butted against their
backs. The wood is littered

with them. In the middle of
the night, one begins
vomiting and can’t stop himself,
begins bleeding from

his side. Another wakes with
headache and thinks of milk.
The third probably thinks of
reading a map, that moss

does not always grow on the
north side of trees, of
prevailing winds
and how they change the directions of things.

There is soft bread,
his daughter in a white
pinafore, her simple shoes, she is lost
in the snow, her black

hair blowing free from behind her
ear, the borders of her body, of
the separate flesh.
He is bleeding from his tongue.

He thinks of
a northwestern wood squirming with snow,
he remembers cold and hungry
and tired, he remembers

it was already dark.

Tasia M Hane-Devore is currently completing a PhD at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where she lives with her wife and two children. Most recently, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, New York Quarterly, The Laurel Review, and The Benefactor Magazine.