Geremica spun three blue wheels and hooked a star
while she waited for Sal to get over himself
and come back as a human popsicle.
She wanted her turn in the snow.
The moment the door opened,
she flattened herself against the ice blocks
till he slid through to melt into a puddle
of green and purple on the hearth mold.
She couldn't help it: she cackled as she spun
out the front door into the starry night,
where each snowflake was another
miniature world, while he gelled
in the mold back into an unreasonable
facsimile of human flesh. The idiot
hadn't bothered to check, as usual, just
left everything to her, and he hadn't
noticed she'd switched out his standard
six-foot shape for a koala bear dressed
like Santa Claus. As she turned her
face up to the snow that fell like stars,
and opened her mouth to swallow worlds,
she tried to ignore the dread looming
behind her like a cave opening.
The Big Ones were coming.
She vibrated to the frequency
of their stomps.
She spun around,
dancing so she'd be harder to catch, spinning
her rotors while she could, lifting off
the ground a few more feet with each
bounding step, trying to ignore
the knowledge that
her turn would come.