She lives, the bird says, and means nothing silly. She is dead and available the fox says, knowing about the spirits. Not the picture at the funeral, not the object of grieving. She is dead and you can have that, he says. If you can love without politeness or delicacy, the fox says, love her with your wolf heart. As the dead are to be desired. Not the way long marriages are, nothing happening again and again, Not in the woods or in the fields. Not in the cities. The painful love of being permanently unhoused. Not the color, but the stain. "