Five by Alma Buholzer

Goodbye,
You will be cold again, she said.
Fake forgotten, because I tore you with my mind –
So smart, yellow paper, you were.
I stood for the frozen tree at midnight.
Black leaves buried under two feet of clear water.
I drowned fixed in place,
Mirror to white rotted face.
Her heart beat fast under the decay smell of furs.
Skin was leather, the red lips silently apart.
Eyes were blank, fixed inward.
God, I was warm in that fur.
Of course I thought of you, dear –
As the leaf trapped in ice, and I thought of me as dead until morning –
And I thought of you, how the heat would ease you into decay.
She moved
no she said
said
screamed
And could feel herself start to fragment her brain slowly in order to stay alive.
My mind had frozen to the bottom of his black memory,
And I was free to leave it.
My hot face, hot and wet for you because salt water won’t freeze.
Then I took off my long coat
And where it had been attached was blood,
Steaming in the snow.
Naked now, so red and dripping.
Pulled your hand out of my pocket and wanted you back.
It had lost all its warmth and colour in just three hours.
I kept the left one, of course;
A knife for you was all I knew.