The Grey Man and His Corpse

Fierce gusts of icy sleet sheared their faces.
Behind them, deep red footprints in the snow.

A grey man carried a body, hollow of air, she was dusted in cherry flakes of snow.
A glacial tear had wandered down her stiff cheek from a moon that was once her starry eye.

Into the snowy fray these hollowed red footpaths meander on,
into his wintry, black mind no one followed.

Beyond the black, wicked spikes of leafless trees,
into the evening blue, his soulless spirit danced.

He took her frozen hand and she held on tight.
He looked at her and she had a smile frozen in time.

He didn’t want to let go just then, her departed smile guided him still.
They entered the thickly wood, trotting and smiling.

He swore she kept looking at him with shut eyes,
So, he lifted her to his grey face and kissed her icy lips.

“I wished she'd kiss” whispered the grey man.
“Your tears have frozen like glaciers” he added.
 
“I’ll chip the still stream you’ve bled away.”
“I’ll tend to the cuts your sharp, glacial tears have carved.”

She hadn’t bled since the descending winter sun was impaled by the wicked, lifeless tree branches,
He petted her cheek with his coarse palms.
      
He swore felt her warm breath on his neck
as he carried her through the dismal wood.

“You don’t have to say anything” he said.
“I know you wanted me to kiss you.”

He pressed her stiff, plump lips against his neck.
He firmed his grip around her; kissing her.

A shearing gust came. Her hair swayed in the flurries
of the winter-night’s storm.