Icebound

Grains of chilly sugar melt under my roving fingers
Erasing themselves against the icy emery
The breath of wintry glass uncertain lingers
When I caress the redolent skin of its memory

Burning ashen messages without further regret
I feel their blood run down my wrists
I feel them – miswritten, mismatched and misread
Agonizing in the embrace of the hands they kissed

These ornate winter hieroglyphics now gently slide
Swirling in the numinous depths of my fingerprints
And I, infected by the secrets they used to hide,
Convulse and shiver in the realm of my frosty dreams…