Instructions for Wintering on the Ice Field

Work your hands often

or they will swell purple

and turn feral

and flee from your wrists.

Unhook your body

from its fear of this vastness,

this dream of the sea

where clouds shift

their bone map,

erase your footsteps

again and again.

Here, where the land

is a form of water,

all freezes to light.

Even you.

But you will thaw

and part your skin

for a single, black tendril.

It will grow

as if through stone

in the ruins

of your beloved city

centuries after it has fallen.