She came from the land of Ice and Snow

At first she spoke without ceasing

about her origins. It was not her fault,

as our town often had this searing

effect on the words of the stranger.

One of the things most maligned

is the impulse to beautifully

find oneself aligned

with others.

With one thing and another,

years passed while sand turned to glass.

She dyed her hair and looked into mirrors

and pronounced herself fit for this morass.

We have for many years been distant

and for most of what was together

I was cruel. She decorates her walls with feathers

as I sit spinning thread onto a spool.

Now she wears long necklaces,

reminiscent of Sixties stars,

eats legal pills and lays her head

in a city with nine million cars.

Men fall in love with her and she tosses her hair

and goes again to climb the stair

and close the door. None again shall pass that way

and split ends glisten like new hay.

Her strength was from some other thing

I must suppose. One lover does insist

on comparing her to a rose,

and though the other may not speak

upon the hallowed bright concrete

that lays beneath the bright-lit streets,

he still can whisper in her ear

of reaping done and what is to be sown.

She chose East and I’ll choose West,

and we’ll fall into the magpie’s chest.

Under her sleeves she declares

her incompleteness and contests

attempts to raise her in the air.

There too, she says, we raze things

that on other days received warm kisses,

and though the ocean dies the easiest

as it is there that all must fall,

our venom can rise to icons placed

in the kindest skies.

It pleases me that I am so fond of her

without the disastrous accompaniment

of comparing her to flowering lilies.

If I had learned to do this

earlier

I would perhaps have

avoided

many troubles.