• I slide on an ailing,
    Cracking pond.
    It slips toward the king’s
    Crown, menacing
    Lies spurting from its mouth,
    Elevating my skating.
    !

    While the world
    Hastens away from heat,
    Invisible walls
    Throw themselves upwards,
    Ever-glistening.
    ,
    All the while, you, my
    Queen, continue your
    Unmoving façade,
    Another step away from death.
    ,
    Glamorous teardrops
    Lower upon the
    Iridescent ice,
    Shining but horrified.
    This freezing field
    Eternalizes the flowers,
    Never looking back.
    It is a ring of
    Now or never, forever.
    Glassed over.
    .

    Slow and silent, there
    Lie one thousand
    Immeasurable glaciers. Now
    Very wet, crying in an
    Eradicating release.
    Rise from the glazed
    Sea, above a crawl.

    Orifices melting,
    Foragers freezing.

    I now question you,
    Clever queen, dancing the
    Eminence of ice.

    Misty and further away,
    Escaping view, but
    Laughing like so,
    Tarnished, hoping to stay forgotten.
    .

    Surrender to the swansong,
    Heed all facets that
    I’m becoming.
    Venice. Santiago. Moscow.
    End in vain.
    Rivers, you flowing beings!
    Shy away from me,

    As you – if not quite
    Nervous – will dawn upon
    Despair, and her cold waltz.

    Chilling. That is I.
    Run, my queen,
    I’m more than
    Expected, more than awaited.
    So go before my touch comes.

    Always it slides from your
    Rancid mind, what I might
    Erase someday.

    Fear me now, I’m the
    External path to
    Loss, and mourning. I’m
    The frozen touch of Winter.