Awarded Honorable Mention — Academy of American Poets Association
I have seen the icewalker
Painting my window at night,
Tracking those stormy wolfprints
All through my gardens.
He chokes on freshwater, cries
For salt to rid him of milkteeth.
He sang in spoonfuls, my icewalker
Until I caught him by the mouth,
Dragged him in and shut the door,
Fixed a plate of good food and firelight.
But he would not eat.
The moon was cruel to him, you see.
Withdrew her love and called him
Ordinary. Left him a blindman
And laughed when he could not flee.
I watched him shrink at my table,
Try to melt out the floorboards,
So I told him, I wept and said
Loving is hideous.
That night, my sweet icewalker
Did not paint any window,
Did not raise any mountain in rage.
He lay down in the hearth
Though it burned him and sang long
With so childlike a voice,
That the moon herself burned black with shame.
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