Borealis

Years ago, you thought you understood
what it meant to plan for the day the body,
finally released from its cage, might enter 
a field as if clothed in only the cool, 
visible frost escaping as breath, without
trembling. Or as if guided by the old 

percussion beneath the blood, but shorn 
of its fearful palpitations. But below
the varied complexity of light falling 
as bars of unworldly green, the goddess 
travels westward each day to herald the sun's
return. How can she do this without breaking 

or surrendering, without believing the yoke 
is not hammered iron but fire, molten, melting.