Outside my mother’s house,

I built a mother out of snow,

patted down a sloping bosom 

with patterned mittens. I insisted

her fat and kind, tried to imagine

the gently pulsing warmth. 

I built a dragon to protect us,

scaled it in pale green food coloring

carried in tin buckets slopping 

a trail of melting dots. 

I built an ice-block home 

of rainbow bricks, held my hands

to the imagined fire’s lick. 

Finally meeting you 

was like coming in from the cold, 

the cocoa brewing, hot stew 

for my old hands, 

blue from always building, 

ready to rest. 

©

Kara Goughnour is a writer living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They are the author of “Mixed Tapes,” part of the Ghost City Press Summer 2019 Micro-Chap Series. They are the recipient of the 2018 Gerald Stern Poetry Award, and have work published or forthcoming in The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Third Point Press, and over fifty others. Follow them on Twitter and Instagram or read their collected and exclusive works at karagoughnour.com.