A new poem by Rebecca Hawkes.

FROST TENDER

Good morning we say by touching noses like horses.
What’s a little mucus on the velvet? Slapstick of prehensile lips.
Is there any better animal than the one that gallops home

when called a name you gave to it? Mealy-mouthed, we meet
with equine breath like too-ripe fruit. In stale air we gather slow
the shards of broken day. Sweep sleep dust. Real-time screensavers:

snowdrifts gliding down the skylight. The calving slush hypnotic.
Rime of salt on every surface. Crusted rheum chandeliering
the eyelashes. The little love that makes you purchase

minor household appliances. Toaster, kettle; homely heats.
Fret not the fluctuating electricity – leastways until some socket
starts to smoke. Once I was told my pocket monster was a burning

mare. Of course, I reared – took slight offense to not have been
assigned a glamoured fox, or rarer kind of wyvern. At least I wasn’t
mistered as the mime. Couldn’t go soundless: apologies

to nameless neighbors learning our pet language. Sweethearts’
whinnying cacophony. Hair lifting on our necks like candle wicks
torched in the melting of limbs. So I ponyta, I rapidash.

I pound my flaming hooves into the turf. Enough already
of the quiet earth. It should be time for crocuses to thrust their heads up
eager from the lawns. But snow again muffles the gardens –

ripped pillow acoustics. Goosedown in the mouth, then the mourning
for lost gloves. I cradle your bare hands under my shirt. Call you
frost tender – a label meant for certain sulky blooms.

Who among us isn’t too fragile for these false springs?
Give me the real thing. No more drills, only actual fires.
Gold so pure you’ll bite right through the ring.

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