A cliché, but I took him to the fair,
and in between the whistling circus notes
he skimmed my shoulder, dusted off my coat
and murmured harp songs, shivering, to the air

that rippled back, reflected by the moon.
His breathing was off-beat, and harsh, and wet;
his hair was black and wild, his nose re-set.
He didn’t call, but wrote to me in runes:

“Do you remember walking by the hronrad?
I had such goals, and monsters to defeat,
the forests breathing, rivers wild and mad.

And I was made for war and beer and meat
and whistling snow that spills like ash and thorn,
a wraith in wolfskin, inexorably born.”