“Death manifested ‘fore my dimming sight,
Not as a grim shade cloaked in darksome hue,
But as an elegant figure robed in white,
With skin of virgin snow and lips ice-blue.
Her hand was colder than the mountain’s storm
When she with feathery touch caressed my cheek;
So softly then, down towards my frozen form
She’d lean and with a voice angelic speak.
‘Ill-fated soul in blizzard lost,’ said she,
‘Though doomed to die amid this grave domain,
By virtue of your grace, spared you shall be,
But breathe of this, and you shan’t breathe again.’ “
I pause, then at my wife, Oyuki, gaze,
Only to greet one haunting snow-pale face ….

[Ngo Binh Anh Khoa is an English teacher currently living and working in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He enjoys reading and writing poetry in his free time, and his poems have previously appeared in venues such as Scifaikuest, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Eternal Haunted Summer, Star*Line, Eye to the Telescope, Songs of Eretz Poetry Review and elsewhere.]