Entering A New Ice Age Poem by NurViktoria Ellen

Since I moved in with you
winter comes earlier each year
with goodnight kisses as crisp and clear
as crystals, and smiles, frozen stiff and blue.
At breakfast with fresh-minty teeth,
pouring polite conversation straight from the fridge
over clusters of guaranteed sugar-free
silence, while we’re considering marriage.
From this house, passion has been banned:
no more purring with pleasure like cats on the hearth,
affection’s been exiled. We no longer hold hands
for comfort or strength. We are seasons apart.
Your heart is Siberia, a desert of snow,
While on my lonely feet I grow
Icicles; for heat I clutch
A trusted bottle and begrudge
The sun its feverish afterglow.