The North

We will sacrifice ourselves

to the pale girls of the north.

It is the first lesson:

the beautiful are the ones who survive.

We do all that the blood allows.

Taken to a narrow bed,

we offer up the hours, the years,

hoping for rebirth from this cold curse.

Oh, how romantic —

this theater of horns and hounds.

Other suitors prevail;

that is the clockwork of the season.

It is a superficial tie,

a thin wire pulled tight.

Does love even bind?

Trumpets through the pines:

a new pursuit begins

before the old tracks have frozen.

Is it cliché to write of a love not had?

Perhaps.

But the script is etched in the ice.

She chooses who falls,

carries the chosen

where the rest of us cannot follow.

We are just the namesakes,

performing the chase

until the winter takes the stage.

Then the thaw.

New tracks.

Follow.