Already sick, I waited for the doctor. Twomonths later the appointment was canceledas storm prevented flights into Atqasuk.We build us alone. The solitary fox emptiesthe house of its many things. Days countpills to pollute their bodies like ice warmsto its desires. Quiet deaths, these glaciers.All the erratics, a kettle lake warms to boil.*Sedge edges the village, spreads. Dominantbrings to mind curved landscapes—a cityagainst the foothills, ocean to shore—eventundra where tussocks seek enough heightto flower. Even with that there are eyesreaching. This landscape appears beyondhuman shape. Even without that, namesmapped it, those eyes running horizons.-40 degrees—to touch each other is arrival.*Thirty-third spring. Painted tundra fillsthe time. It looks like a scene we might findin the open room beyond this room, far pastourselves—a parade of caribou eyes aimed.*The absence is enormous in the Arctic.Christian’s mother died when a ropebroke as she helped pull the bowheadonto the beach, its recoil force enoughto kill what it hit the moment it did.Some deaths create other ways to die.Some losses you only understand onceyour body and mind come back togetherwherever it is beyond what we name.*On this street or that one, on Fireweedor Tudor, maybe downtown Anchorage,their blocks on my breath, if I see a storyrepeat a gesture and fall, maybe like Jonahwould have years ago, winter on his face,will it return as pores release in the night?*As we tilted our cold necks to the floorone friend stood behind and pushedhard on the back of our heads to make usblack out. We tried to turn off, inhalingdays with every drug hidden in schoolto leave ourselves and return metaphors.