You hated visitors but loved their shoes

For so many years you slept a

small still weight by my restless feet.

When I got up you would claim

my spot, leftover warmth, a cuddle.

In the end you who were silent

cried out waking, sleeping, lost, alone.

I would hear and nudge you gently,

not knowing if you were awake, asleep?

To let you know I was always  there

awake, and with you in the dark

Ice

Ice

Once you folded entire continents, oceans rose and fell, lived, died at your whim

you coughed up boulders big as houses, pulled vast sheets of rocks across

thousands of miles, as effortlessly as a child with a blankie.

No one stood against you not man, not mammoth not muskox well maybe muskox

but mostly you came out on top, your gallstones ground a world to stretch marks and

your cousins rolled through space with a heedlessness that made dinosaurs tremble.

Now it's all downhill, you clutch little boys tongues, nip their noses, lurk

in the mouths of alleys to attack someone home from the shops with a bag of apples

and today you tripped a small white dog in red boots who bumped his chin on the curb.

Despite a short lived triumph as the screaming eagle centrepiece in a buffet

your future is mostly ice hockey, curlers in loud sweaters, and bobbing

around an unfriendly world in a gaudy pink drink with a paper umbrella.

So there!