UNDER THE ICICLES

UNDER THE ICICLES, by Devan Barlow, artwork by Simon Walpole

 

I wait underneath the icicles

encrusting the roof’s edge, catching

droplets in an old goblet I found

in the back of the cellar where a mouse

made a nest, dragged in a length

of pale green ribbon

 

As the icicles die, my hands

shake, sloshing droplets back

and forth, these goblets too delicate

to risk even the nimblest,

thinnest of gloves, a fact

I’ve learned in frostbite and regret

 

Maybe by tomorrow I will

have collected enough to appease

the maw of spring, given it liquid

enough to agree to nourishing rain

so this winter may eventually

retract its claws

 

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Devan Barlow is the author of the Curses & Curtains series of fairy tales-meet-musicals fantasy novels. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in several anthologies and magazines. She can be found at her website devanbarlow.com or on Bluesky @devanbarlow.bsky.social. She reads voraciously, and can often be found hanging out with her dog, drinking tea, and thinking about sea monsters.

 

Simon Walpole has been drawing for as long as he can remember and is fortunate to spend his freetime working as an illustrator. He primarily use pencils, pens and markers and use a bit of digital for tweaking. As well as doing interior illustrations for various publishing formats he has also drawn a lot of maps for novels. his work can be found at his website HandDrawnHeroes.