Every Girl Needs A Cinnamon Stick

Every Girl Needs A Cinnamon Stick

To feel snow slowly melt without mentioning
how extreme heavy cut crystal can be,
she maps weather predictions,
writing the temperature on the palm
of her hand. She says she's itchy
for the traveler's dream naming the flash
where hallucinations are spices gently
unwrapped after being smuggled inside
woolen socks at the bottom of her gaping suitcase.
On the hotel floor she sits with her skis,
steaming past obliterated streaks of benign
white ice warmed by a cinnamon stick
stirring homemade mulled wine, the recipe
passed on from mother to child.