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THE POET

I gently carry Fribby in my forelimbs as I climb the rest of the way up the mountain.

She’s wearing my crown. It has stopped snowing. She keeps beaming at me and saying, “My poet.”

I snort blacksmoke out my nostrils.

She’s got her metal forelimbs wrapped tight around my long neck, holding on.

I whisk my tail around behind me.

“You know I could walk if I wanted to,” she says. “But I like it right where I am. Yes sir. I surely do.”

I don’t dare look at her because the joy I am feeling right now is more than I have ever felt in my entire life and is almost more than I can contain. My heart has swollen to its maximum capacity. So I keep my eyes forward as I walk.

Now she smiles a beakful of fangs and says, “My poet who isn’t dead and who doesn’t care that I’m a machine.”

The moonlit snow is crunching under my green webbed feet.

Up ahead I see the dark mouth of the cave.

The sensation of holding her is the most wonderful thing I have ever felt.

To me, she is a miracle.

If I weren’t so exhausted, I would be weeping with gratitude.

Then she puts her silver beak up close to my scaly earhole.

I feel her hot breath.

We’re bouncing just slightly.

And she whispers, “My King.”