Author of poetry and fiction
Mist crept over the headstones that filled her mouth,
coating the dead languages she kept buried there.
She bathed in vanilla words borrowed from a lover,
but secrets have a way of contaminating porcelain skin.
December offered comfort like ice offers warmth to neighbors,
but she neglected the nightfall in its soliloquy.
Icicles dripped from your eyelashes, breaking your ebony skin so slightly.
I wondered if you could feel it.
A growl like glaciers scraping against each other set my teeth on edge.
I must remember that I am a lioness.
You threw the biting wind at me, tearing at my offensive porcelain skin.
I angled my chin defiantly and bared my teeth.
You poured nitrogen down my throat, making me swallow every last drop.
It burned like fire, blistering my calm.
Snow swirled around you as if you commanded it, but it is only an illusion.
You control nothing.
Don’t forget.
I am a lioness you say.
I hunt for my pride, but I look in
boxes I had long put up for winter,
forgetting it was November.
I am a lioness you say.
Blood drips from my muzzle
as I lope through the herd of
blissfully unaware sheep.
I am a lioness you say.
I dress myself daily in the wools
of my hunt from the day before,
being sure to hide my fangs.
I am a lioness you say.
I am still hunting for my pride.
It seems you, one of the sheep,
has ripped it from me.
She thought the winter would
keep her warm, that the biting
and bitching wind would be but
hushed kisses on her neck,
and the idiosyncratic flakes of
frost would be her shroud.
Her eyes spattered the bleak
panorama with green and gold
reflections of autumn nights on
tempestuous swells and breakers,
becoming the stars hovering above
crookedly bleeding chest organs.
Soft lavender oblivion has kept her
artfully sedated beneath the
steely clouds of Yuletide. Held
underwater, she sees nothing but
nothing, yet her tongue speaks
of the sapphire sun on the horizon.
C. Brown 