From the Snow Queen
by Sarah Provence
My first glimpse of you
Was through a veil of snow
Your hair blew across your face
Like a bird wing
And I thought
You must be lost or lonely
You must welcome the hissing whisper of snow
And I loved you for loving that bite of the wind
And led you into the woods for the sake of the winter in you
I am not to blame if
Your eyes tuned at the groan and crack of snowy branches
Or the flashes of sunlight through ice silvered trees
Every night your eyes
Follow me like the moon
Silent we wander and I know
It's your faithful heart I want
And not for the moment our eyes meet
Every evening when I turn like a fish
And find myself
Again facing you
Ohio Origami
by Sarah Provence
Girl gathering fireflies
Graceful arm arcing against the sky,
Draped in stars like a robe,
Holding a jar with holes in the lid,
She's the queen of earth magic
Harvesting the sky
Before turning inside and
Glittering the house with wild things
In her bedroom
Folded cranes beat wings obediently
Against the desk
Notes and pterodactyls, paper snowflakes
Rest from blank flights
The whole world is carefully creased.
Rivers of ink, and wrinkled roads
Unfold as years multiply
Inside weĠre duplicate triangles and many
Pieces of one huge page
And, bent over her daughter
Folding her grownup fingers over that small hand
As if it were her own
She maps a continent of memories
Outside another you chases a new night