She Defies

At the end of the world,
Beneath the reflecting pool
Of an intergalactic sky,
She hoards daylight.

Her translucent nail
Traces shiny galaxies
Laced on the crystallized
Windowpane.

She counts the seconds
Of arctic light, absorbs
Each beggarly ray as it
Rises and plummets to sunset.

She drinks the pale glow
Of a cold, dismissive sun,
A luminescence sliced
From blocks of stellar ice.

The somnolent world
Silver gray and bleached
Lies, sepulchered
Beneath a mortician’s sheet.

Shadows leach a sickly green
That empties to glacial blue
Glazing the veiled face
Of an eclipsed mountain slope.

She Defies

Translucent puffs of snow
Spin and caper at her feet.
Tossed, like wayward children,
They tumble and roll.

An explorer on an alien planet,
A cartographer without a compass,
She paints the snowy mountain tarp
With the hem of her green skirt.

In its weave, her purple cape
Catches wind, billows like a sail.
The stiff brim of her pontifical hat
Slices the air, like the prow of a ship.

Awash in refracted light, the sky
Tints her disappearing footsteps
Lavender and gold, dappling
A winter scene that she defies.