Crooked November moon. The sky’s belly, torn open. The snow, spilling out and coming down. The first snow. Onto the midnight streets of Moscow.

“Ash.”

Wind. Flakes. Blizzard, whiteout.

“You can’t grasp at what’s gone.”

Stuttering down the streets. The inhuman streets. Trash sleeping in squares. Frozen corpses in the frightened mouths of gateways. Found. In the courtyards: people, campfires, whispers.

“Forty-eight black cranes. Rose up. They made three circles around the Kremlin.”

“Black magicians . . . ”

“The entire inner circle.”

“Did they fly away?”

“The patriarch was with them, too.”

“And waved a wing at us . . . ”

“They roasted…