TURBINE | KAPOHAU

All day today the ice melted. 
My name is Queen. 
I haven’t melted at all 
though I am soft 
and getting softer 
until I will pardon you all. 
I watch benignly as one by one 
you slink off down diminishing avenues 
to somewhere less central. 
I pardon Jimmy who egged on Joe 
who threw the snowball at Jean 
and I pardon Jean for wiping off the snow 
as if snow were something that should go. 
Even the grass is pushing snow aside. 
I can feel it rising up inside me, too. 
I pardon it 
and get on with my reign.