The Glacier
Issue Two
Winter 2023

Calendar Girl

I assigned a season to
everything in my life.
Winter got your face in the halo
of the screen, blue and holy,
the pile of receipts with 
their dry plains rustle.
Our pet was winter in a way, but only when sleeping,
his whole soft wildness coiled on fibers 
made by machines.

Autumn I gave the long cut of light through 
the door you
left open. Like the skinniest lighthouse, like 
the stillest candle.
The neighbor held music lessons and 
that was autumn too, the piano songs rose 
and thready. I pictured small hands. 
What else.

Spring was
a salt skein on the counter,
tonight’s moon skim-milk watery,
all like snowmelt - washed clean
come dawn 
and on your way out
the kiss you give:
your coffee-soaked heart, me dewy with sleep.

Other times your mouth held
a core of hot shimmer:
high tide at noon.
I guess this is summer,
spit, rain, and sea 
too old to be assigned.
The lighthouse of the door in the dark,
your forehead flooded blue, our mess,
your kiss -
they say
every part makes its way back
to every whole
like snow in the sunlit creek.

KALEIGH SPOLLEN is a writer based in Philadelphia, PA. Her work has been published in The Offing, Thrush, Hobart, Epiphany Magazine, and elsewhere.

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