Winter
By Cassandra Leone
It’s winter & I
bed down with a thin
Fox. He licks my
closed eyelids with a rough
tongue & paws a soft
place for me in frozen
leaves. I cling to his brassy
ribs & whisper when
he kicks his hind legs
in a dream. With my lips
pressed to the soft hair
of his ear I say, Fox, because I know
his name. I bite down
on my palm with dull
human fangs & the blood
is round & glossy
as an apple. But in my own
hunger I turned away—
& snow & ice & Fox
faded to spring. & I am
surrounded by new buds—
alone, with my skin suddenly
broken & sour as wine.
Cassandra Leone is an MFA Poetry candidate at UC Irvine. She is originally from the Bay Area in California, and completed her undergraduate degree as a non-traditional student at Smith College in Massachusetts. Her poems have been published in The Roadrunner Review, The Milvia Street Journal and are upcoming in the Foothill Poetry Journal. She currently resides in San Diego with her boyfriend and pet rabbit. Twitter: @theodysshe.