“Your strength is that of god,”
she says to the man whose arms loosely surround her
and he, looking past her billowing hair,
answers the branches tugging away from knotted trees
“The better to protect you.”

Her awe-filled voice caresses him, whispering seductively,
“What a mind you have,”
and as she waits, he meets her night forest eyes,
his grip loosens, and he backs away.
The whispered words are carried on the wind,
“The better to lie to you.”

She looks up at his beautiful features and speaks tentatively,
“Your eyes, so kind and human.”
Her words reach across, her cold fingertips follow,
but his focus passes them, to the rushes extending
from the placid, frozen waters
And the words come from his lips,
“The better to love you.”

“And your smile,” she says, “how happy it is,”
and she shows her own square white teeth,
but looking at the snow-laden hillocks,
he doesn’t see; and yet answers,
“The better to warm your heart.”

Pleased with his devotion, she can’t help but continue
“How magnificent your ears,
which hear even the faintest rustle!”
She closes the space between them, her soft breath
warming his cheeks,
and he breathes the scent of piney wood smoke,
drifting on the sigh of his answer,
“The better to know your wishes.”

Now she presses against him, touching the exposed flesh
of his neck, and the shielded bulge down below
He surveys the forest around them,
his eyes glint, and he runs his tongue over blued lips,
then he turns from the pure-white snow,
the wooden needles of trees,
and urging gold light from on high,
and looks again into her expectant eyes.

“You have learned me well, my dear,”
he murmurs at her throat, seeking her blood,
and she twines her fingers in his hair and
brushes the lips desperate for blood softly with hers
before wrenching his head back to the sky,
snarling and smirking at his hungry gaze
fondling the blade behind her back;
“The better to leave you behind.”