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24 Jul 2025
Ennis Rook
Bashe
New
Moon
his name is Winter and
the haunted house
won’t let him leave and
After Jodie Muir‘s illustration of Winter, Misanthropic Guide
from the expansion set of Magic: The Gathering
I love him so much I want to regurgitate my organs.
Isn’t that how pelicans feed flayed-pink young?
I’d start by offering him soup. Just broth and barley.
He ’d sniff it, stray animal,
leave a spoon for the chittering beasts.
When they slurped it down and skittered away unpoisoned
he’d hunch over it, holding the taste in his mouth.
The fading warmth like folktales of the sun.
The more I unsharpen his starveling knife’s edge look
the more suspicion swells like spider’s nest.
He’d grip my forearms bruise-tight, a gloved finger
tracing each blue vein for poison vines.
He’d count my teeth. My breath too warm for him,
like what’s a smile that doesn’t bite?
Yank me into a closet away from the scavenging party –
if I turn on him, the first slash will only shred leather,
the others can flee.
What’s your plan? grip tight at my jacket collar.
Long-term indoctrination? Human meat barbecue?
But I’d just stare up at him,
eyes clear as sky he’s never seen
a shattering –
and I’m biting my hands between thumb and forefinger,
ravenous thinking of him.
Tachycardia: moth-wing heartbeat, lantern-golden eyes.
I think I could break him the way fishhooks wouldn’t,
just humming and carding a hand through his hair.
Behind the poem...
Winter is a minor character from the latest expansion of the card game Magic: The Gathering. On his card – Winter, Misanthropic Guide – he’s depicted by illustrator Jodie Muir in such a way that I instantly transform from a Kinsey 6 (exclusively homosexual) to a Kinsey 5 (slightly bi). Those long, delicate fingers. The cheekbones. That musculature. In the set’s story, he’s unrepentantly villainous. But looking into his cat-like eyes, I have this inexplicable feeling: I could fix him. I also like to imagine what he’d look like if he smiled.