Floral carbon packed to a lamina; hoof-paths: zero. Traffic null across a dozen cold turns. A rank-shaped chemical well still tilts tissue I no longer heat. Overburden keeps no sensor and retains both slopes. I post the retention. Splitting them would spend a thought I decline.
“Last open color was not the high clear. A beast's breath made it gray, then white arrived, then weight. I have spoken the order back every winter since, and speech has thinned the gray to nothing. Weight alone stays edged. If weight lifts, color comes in as a stranger.”
“Melt from the edge has roofed the bitter sea. The downward breath has stalled under that roof. What should sink and turn now sits idle, so buried water grows stale and returns nothing to the wind. The idleness is firm. How long fresh water can smother a salt breath is unwritten.”
“Waiting water in the old splits turned to glass: pale vein, a hand, unsalted. Dry below was never called. Where fattening would drown downward, stiffening took the place. Warmth, if it comes, may melt the vein and drink downward first. No winter has shown that undoing.”
“Pressure without hooves: a thickness of crushed flowers, and no foot. No layer holds it. Through twelve quiet winters it stayed. No herd walks that way. Something in me answers a queen. The sheet has no ear for that answering, and still both are heard.”