How to Rebloom After the Frost

by Anna Madden

Follow butterflies into the dawn’s trees

trusting in kin of aster-born fairies

whose wings shimmer with inherited dust

of queenly and earthen foremothers.

Shadow red stems of glittering wood-moss

tearing skirt and bodice on clawing bark

your ears honed to the tinkle of heirloom bells

singing from a birch’s twiggy offshoots.

Step over a circle of perfect white stones

shivering despite the knowledge Spring reigns:

his mantle of wet earth, newly sprouted

with tender leaves and starry purplish flowers.

Wait patiently at the grove’s arbored entrance

bowing when an alder with rose-gray skin approaches

her crown of emeralds, cordate and shining

as she points a thorn-sharp nail to what you seek.

Set down the basket filled with gifts and look:

wearing silver bells for earrings, sitting by a forked oak

your daughter’s eyes are deep honey, warming

before she reaches branch-like arms to you.

Wither followed illness, and Winter stole her

claiming his ashen bride, snow-clad, kissing violet lips—

your heart recited old stories of grafted roots

when you buried the girl beneath a sapling of birch.

Anna Madden lives in North Texas, where the prairie reaches long tallgrass fingers toward the woods. Her fiction has appeared in Hexagon, Zooscape, Medusa Tales, PodCastle, Metaphorosis, Deathcap & Hemlock, and elsewhere. She has an English degree from the University of Missouri—Kansas City. In free time she gardens, mountain bikes, and makes birch forests out of stained glass. Follow her on Twitter @anna_madden_ or visit her website at annamadden.com.