Under the Northern Lights, the last of her threads unravel.
Loose laces from her corset finally release their hold,
allowing the lungs to fill with thoughts and words she suppressed.
She adores the growing moon, knowing that Selene’s form is perfect
even if the goddess isn’t seen at the fullest or at her best.
Old prayers return, flooding the woman with youthful yearning
for the aching dawn will be sweeter, promising safety once more,
to hear her name filled with loving sighs again.
Her eyes jump in anticipation, desperate for sudden streaks
of shooting stars to pass her selfish dreams upon.
The last bastions of her sanity hold firm, but do not rally,
not under the eerie Lights, for they know.
This is not their domain – it is for the tears she lets Selene kiss away.
Sanity is not for this late bite of night,
not meant to appear when the sky and stars are on fire
on the edge of a freezing tundra.
No, this is the domain for the mad and the hopeful,
who still pray to a goddess who whispers secrets into folds of dreams.
The dark beauty mirrors the night with long dark hair shimmering
under the piercing moon, luminescent with woven crystals.
She postures herself onto the frosted ground, hand to heart
enraptured with a low devotional that the wind dares not carry.
A fragment of a mirror flashes in hand, though to capture Selene’s face
or her own, or perhaps the two as one only the woman would ever know.
Under the Northern Lights, the sojourner remains till the threads of starlight unravel,
and does not return to her bed till the cold numbs the fingers she runs
through the expanse of her hair liberated, still shining but unbraided.