All night wind insists in the trees, its unsteady hush
funneling us down into sleep under the tender
shelter the oaks, even leafless, make—all night
their trunks creak and sigh and speak. Speak
to me—I think the word protect until its edges
dissolve, inside the tent that wraps us
like another, thinner skin, rocked and chastened
by the wind that doesn’t cease: it ripped
the nylon from our hands as we tried
to pin the edges down, make the tent stakes hold
to dead leaves and damp and sand, the tangled
ground that presses back against our bones.
