He is blind. You outsiders see no more than him. He is made blind by ice, eyes filmed, in his heart a shard rent between logic and love, given over not to sadness, but emptiness prevailing like wind. Once his smile bound their garden in a parenthesis of tenderness. This is how flowers bloomed, spring swayed. Once a rose lay unfurled between them like friendship. She would cross rivers, drop her dread over boatside, walk alone over forest floors if only the stones would part. If only she could breathe that empty air, she would outsmart all nature, let leaves green again, give her shoes to a tattered child promising clarity, a path into the glaciers. She would believe even as every petal warned her don’t follow north to the heart of winter where the queen reigns in frozen remove. Even then she would believe that every endless outcry of storm ends with morning breaking sunlight over the soundless howl. His heart might melt again. She would believe. Perhaps she is mistaken. Perhaps the tune is unfamiliar, and it is only her own echo crying. Temptation caresses her face. She is fearless. Foolish. Perhaps spring will grace his heart, thaw it free of contradiction’s shadow.