By: Linda M Crate

the water is too cold
remembers me
the blue
of your november eyes
suspended in the white of snow,
and so i use my
summer’s heart to melt through
that memory;
if i want to swim it will be in
warmer waters
the kind you never seemed to recall
as you told me the horror
stories of your past
of every day you spent without joy in
your heart or eyes
of all those sunny days that were
simply cold as your eyes—
i wonder if you remember dreaming
or are you too jaded?
cynical and sharp as the jagged ends of
a diamond you cut into the glass
of my heart so i fortified it
with steel and gardens of thorns without
rose
you will never touch my flowers
again.