I don’t want to eat you, I just want you wrapped in wool, caradamom, and candle light.

I want you to break free from the prison of night into a vanilla maple London fog, white-laced

and gold-bowed. If I can’t have you warm by the hearth, I will have you for dinner,

and I don’t have a taste for snow angels frozen in time. I want you to be the prey

I missed, safe in your nests of fleece and feather. I am a bonfire made of eye contact, and I will stare

you down to warm toes and rosy cheeks like a wilding of maroon in a blizzard.

I only haunt you to melt your heart of ice. Every time the sun goes down, I hope to find you

cocooned in flannel. You better be getting cozy. I have all the tender sweetness of a Yule cat,

and I will devour you at any hint of enamel rattle, if even a pinkie punctures my warm middle

like a northern midwest windchill, like the sharp threat of an iced dagger.

Prompts used (tags are the poets’ IG handles):

@theconstantpoet - “I have all the tender sweetness of a [ . . .]” @imandq + @ml.mecham + @laur_enough - “a moment I nearly missed” @libbyjenner.poetry - “melting hearts of ice” @m.l.macdonald - “the wilding of maroon” @alexismromo - “white lace, gold bows” + “vanilla maple London fog” @rosepapercastles - “snow angels frozen in time” @jasmine.s.higgins - “if I can’t have you” @angelealowes - “every time the sun comes up” + “prisoner of night and fog” @loisofthehearth - “a bonfire made of eye contact”