Second Skin

I read a book to put on a second skin
And sometimes the fit is too tight
Sometimes the persona is dislikeable;
Those are the ones I leave mid-novel

Hostage

He watches with false eyes the lay of the snow
The whiteness a great blankness
Although his brothers tell him the words for it:
The powder that is freshly fallen
The permafrost that refuses to crunch underfoot
The colors of blue like lampshades thrown
Each tint uttered with the same reverence
Shown for a beautiful woman
It is not until much later that he learns he was born
In a palace of eternal summer
And snatched away during the heat of battle
A babe pushed into a cuckoo’s feathers

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