Between Two or More

One beginning burned as a quiet sister.
They painted her skin with clay and smoke
and dressed her in stone petals that made the stars sing.

She floated in her chambered barge towards a country of ice,
winding around and through her sisters
in fear of the leaving she knew would arrive.

And that time found her alone, shivering off the cold,
all her memories falling into the land,
each dream burrowing down into the white world

each dream binding.
So she stood and walked, listening to the ice words.
Her steps shook the cold, her legs shedding fire

blessed the ice and ground became. Sister walked
the new brown, gathering and perfumed, each step further
from her sisters’ home, each step closer
to her sister’s home.