A/N: Written for The If You Dare Challenge DARK level, prompt 1: glaciers.


Ice Sculpture

It was odd.
Standing on the ice
and feeling the wind -

He was getting cold shoulders.

Shirtless, the summer's cold
pricked with baby-claws.
It was nothing compared to their winter
but bitter, still bitter.

Bitter cold,
without the sweet tang
of summer's treat:
curves that sparkled
in cones a crisp
but always cold.

Enough to freeze his teeth
though his tongue was already frozen

And his shoulders too.
For in the summer he took off his shirt
and only the large expanse of ice
saw the shape beneath

For the moment he went back indoors
and away from the cold,
the coat would be back
upon his shoulders and a hand
moulding him, pushing him,
shaping him, chipping his image
and then freezing the finishing sculpture
to reveal his picture-face

For it was the viewer that made the art,
and not the artist.