The Ordained
BY JACQUES J. RANCOURT
Once snow has filled the lungs, it takes
time to cover the body. Winter hounds
the animals but waits to scrub them down
the trees, and my vocation was to wait,
my marriage veil a wimple, this my state
of tight-packed snow. If God were a season
then he would surely be winter, would ground
by starvation, by frostbite, he would bate
in pairs. I outwitted God by haunting
bear-empty caves and feeding off their pawn,
striping a tree into a rib-thin wife.
I gave my soul to God but he wanted
my body. I gave to winter what belonged
to winter. The rest I cut free with a knife.
