Published May 15th, 2024
by Sophia Tone
Do you remember that winter night?
It was nearly a blizzard
but wasn't. It was a war
of tiny white and rabid pixies and you were so quiet.
You looked lovely plowing through the white shore
though you'd never been and
it was mine
before you made it yours.
I wonder now if this was the thing
that altered the course.
The North digs into people like that.
I know, it's happened
to me.
Anyhow you stopped
caring about stars or pointing
out the pretty ones. You became vast, old.
You got thick and frozen while
I stood with my ice pick,
tapping and tapping at the walls.
There were millennia inside you, there were extinct
things, old fish. I saw flicks
of them beneath your surface,
all silver and blue, and light
where the sun had gotten through. Yes,
you sparkled with poison and also scraps
of love, I think. I think I grew tired
of standing at your great impenetrable door.
I thought I had better leave before
the suck of your indifference
ate me too.
I took off my mittens and threw up my
hands. I went back hungry but myself,
back to my magnolia-stricken land,
where there is somehow always July
on the cusp, and quiet garden voices,
and in the black night thrown
like wine on the sky,
real fairies and real choices.
Author note: The wendigo is a monster in the tradition of Algonquin-speaking tribes
which thrives in winter and possesses the spirits of its victims, turning them into cannibals.
About the Poet
Sophia Tone resides in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
Read the poet's biography on Sophia Tone's Artist Page.
This poem is included in Comet #2, published in the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
Previously published in Axil Poetry and Art:
The River of Tears
by Mykyta Ryzhykh
Axil Poetry and Art is part of the Wax Poetry and Art Network.
- Visit the main Wax Poetry and Art Submissions Page to see all opportunities.
- Visit the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
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