(from the SLCC prompt: write a poem about a favorite picture book you read when you were younger.)
In the long shadow
of Midas and Cassandra
resides the big-nosed
silent-stalking cold-bringer.
She may have come from an ant
or simply her high hideout
in the lifeless mountain heights
that she resembles and
she seeks heat and warmth and
the kindness of a fire’s halo of souls,
but only finds and leaves frozen
loneliness wherever she alights.
I met the Groke when I was still
fair, but like Sniff I felt not fear but
pity and read the warning in her
icy, solitary wake.