Letter from the Ice Field, January

Again I rode through the forest of dead trees. I rode through the swamp of blood, alone, thinking nothing of you or anyone. I rode until I found the remains of the town in a clearing, where I stopped, and walked down into the crypt, knowing a saint had lain there for centuries. Her mouth lay open, as if to ferry over the word of a messenger. The saint had my face. The saint woke and rose from her coffin, and gave me her skin, which is a map of the earth, and her eyes, which see every planet. I took out my eyes and put hers in, then climbed into her empty coffin, my body glowing as hers had: like a femur in a fire, its marrow burning across the length of me. The burning was the sound of your voice, I remember—calling me across the lake that winter—Come over to this side, I found some dry wood—and look, you have found me again. Inside me you have learned to speak impossibly.