The Cold City

the marble streets were adorned with bronze skinned slave girls;
imports from the summer kingdoms.

girls who hid
at the sound of the ground
crunching beneath his boots and

from the sound of frost rattling
against the windowpanes.

girls who quivered as he scratched
at the glass
before returning to his loneliness.

they whispered stories of him,

tales of the hideous creature
that stole your beauty and raped
your dreams until the madness of grief took over.

and these girls,
these girls so beautiful like
their mothers were a lily and fathers a stag
pined
and pined

for the sun to ascend over their bodies
like long awaited slumber.