" The White Queen "
Predator and prey prepare. No light
from the full wolf moon will illuminate
rabbit tracks in fresh snow. Some will wake
to hunger when day returns.
I walk past the ruined barn,
its roof an origami of despair.
I imagine it under a gentle sky,
dot the farm with Holsteins
and hay bales. Wind drives away
the memory of cows, erases color.
I see only in sepia--hemlocks, pine trees
muddy in the leaden light. A blot on the horizon
resolves into crows' wings. They plunge
through empty air and shroud
the white arms of a slender birch. Talons
bite through the fabric of my coat.
To live here, you must surrender. Winter
makes no accommodations for you. She kills
casually, without malice, like all deadly things
with a bright and terrible beauty.
© 2004 Lisa Janice Cohen
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