Sing out with heaving breath and frantic heart
in transitory tones that pierce your brain
like footsteps crunching through the crystal art
of snow that wears a coat of frozen rain.
Run faster if you can while shards of ice
rise up in splintered pain against your shin.
Consider how mechanically precise
these temporary shivs incise your skin.
The hurt you leave behind in globules, red,
once carried heaving breath and frantic life
to memories of love within your head,
but now congeals on winter’s passing knife.
Your tracks are fresh and punctuated deep,
defiant as the warmth of dying sleep.