from Ghost Blueprints

4

For snow, at Christmastime, we thinned
sheets of gauze and cotton to wrap
around arrangements of dry twigs
in oversized vases— We took

our sweaters to don inside the mall
where we could pose for photos
against the chilled slab
of an indoor rink, cutout

backgrounds of iced over
cottages and stenciled sleighs
foreign to our tropical clime.
When I first walked into the bone-

chill of a real winter, new
friends warned: my hair, damp
from the shower, would turn into
a breakable tiara of icicles.

I looked at all the stunned
glittering in the trees, each limb
sheathed as if for a long keeping: as if
the heart keeps best, numbed and on ice.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.