I dream of a girl with copper coins covering her eyes. She flies over hard packed snow in a sleigh pulled not by horses, but swirls of snowflakes that take the shape of hoof or nostril or velvet ear. She is gray blue cold. She is the voice you hear beneath the wind when it settles in the tops of firs to rest. She is frost. She is relentless. She is lost. She is alone. She is a story. She is a wish. She is a pair of shoes. She is an orphan. She is a captive. She is brave. She is a boat. She is roses, lilies, violets I grow in my garden. She is the daughter I will never wake to find running through my cherry orchards in summer, fruit staining her mouth dark red.
Brianna Pike
Brianna Pike is an Associate Professor of English at Ivy Tech Community College. Her poems have appeared in So to Speak, Connotation Press, Heron Tree, Memoirs & Mixtapes & Whale Road Review among others and she recently received her first Pushcart nomination. She currently serves as an Editorial Assistant for the Indianapolis Review and lives in Indy with her husband & son.
Artwork: Christian Schloe, Ego-Alter Ego
Website: https://www.facebook.com/ChristianSchloeDigitalArt/
Gingerbread House Lit Mag 
Pingback: National Poetry Month/Copper Coins – Brianna Pike