For November

I will not ask you to be kind, or go easy on me.
Already the wild dogs rip the air like threads of silk
as the wind quickens. Already my dreams dress
in darker shades. I have been here before. I attend
no favors other than the sailing of my body
across the frost, the year after all so close
to its conclusion, one I might like to see. Let me

at least attempt to make it through the winter.
If I fail I know this much: early autumn, the gulls
beginning their plunge south, a child handed me a feather
some bird had abandoned, its escape more precious
than any of its singular parts. He said I could keep it.
Which is to say nothing is ever really lost
when the cold comes—just pocketed, proffered, a prayer.