Tiptoes of snow encroach on tranquil streams
that feed the sea. The same drops that touch
the Emperor's toes ripple back to the Witch's heels.

Her hands turn pretty patterns around her wand.
Spirals and helixes create icicle skins 
to form after an icicle heart, her cells 
slowed down by lack of invigoration.
She, oh, history reverberates with tales of she:

demon, seductress, Lilith-born,
the only one of her kind thrown to a world
of learned animals that turn wary faces away.
Her dark eyes too haunting to study longer
than the time it takes to walk across a severed stump.

The clumps of snow cascade from her cloak 
as she snakes through the valley, but here
her head rears back, scales warm in the low sunlight.

She doesn’t want to admit she adores the lovely.
She’s never felt lovely. Those who love need
to understand how their daggers jam her fingernails.
Yet this corner of the world, this little cove, this little glade
she hesitates to coat with snow. Such softness upon her skin,

the liana vines, the lichen, the liriope:
dark geometries, stretching cords looking for light
yet true to their low-lying nature under the forest canopy.
The only animal here, some talking squirrel. She waves her hand
absently and he turns to stone — a granite lawn decoration

for her preserved paradise. Add a force field made of mirrors,
and everyone believes in her dystopia. Let them talk.
Let them fear, bow down to her power, for here 

in loneliness and greed, 
she owns something serene.
No one can find it but she

and the lion. She ignores him 
for now
he has allowed her to reign.

Honorable mention in this contest: https://allpoetry.com/contest/2831058-National-Poetry-Month-April-20th-noguest

_{(Inspired by the White Witch from the Chronicles of Narnia)}