She came to visit
in the hush clutched like a blanket before dawn
her icicle kiss
left on windowpanes hello
snow sifted out
like flour
blown from her palms
of her holy caribou there is no trace
but sound,
and things that wind make visible —
antlers clang
in ice-encased branches
freezing pungent cloudy sap
to amber
hooves pound, scraping
in the melt from gutters
her sleigh bells ring
when icicles fall
white-curling wind
is the gusty flick of tongue, ear or tail
or the gossamer tip
of a sleeve —
or maybe how she speaks.
she glides through blue shadows
treading the border
between grey sky and land
losing definition
now that she has drunk deep and dark and conquered
it is her turn to flee
this fatal attraction:
eternal minuet of ice and sun.

[Shirl Sazynski writes scenarios and scripts for VietheGame.com. She received an honorable mention for poetry in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2008. Her poems, articles, illustrations and comics have appeared in literary journals, magazines and newspapers across the US. She has found the New Mexico desert preserves many remarkable things — including pagan beliefs and traditions now mostly gone from the Western world. Please visit her site.]