ICE QUEEN

by Mark Wunderlich

Place your hands together in an attitude of supplication.
Bring to me your notion of hopefulness.

In my small kingdom, the light is leaning to the colder latitudes.
The populace readies for its season of deprivation

with deep concern. Horses that once
nosed the green edges of the glacier are back

in the snow pastures where they will paw
with need deeper than hunger

though less efficient. Overhead wind moves
that is not a wind. Souls fog the harbor

with their faces of distance, cats return to the barn eaves
to lick the insides of an egg sucked dry last summer.

Your absence has taught me how the senses
might be heightened—knife-sharp

angel-heavy. Like wings, they will lift me
to my winter quarters, where a cold cup of coffee

waits, an offering to the governing powers
of abandonment. Believe me

when I say it was not always like this.
Once I was more than this lean-to in the memory.

Look at me, little body.
Look at me with a heart that is drum-empty.