Vault of Green Lanterns

At the edge of the world the mountain breathes cold, a slow animal of stone keeping its mouth shut. We file inside, a line of small warm sounds, boots scuffing the blue light into waking.

Drawers glide open like vowels, like wings. Each packet is a closed story of summer, powdered gold of an unseen field, latched with frost and careful labels.

Above us, the aurora rifles the dark, green banners for a parade with no bodies. We learn how quiet can be a promise, how the future can be shelved in silence.

When we leave, the snow erases our thin tracks; the vault keeps its lanterns burning under ice. In my gloves the keyring warms and cools, a metal seed of the year not yet opened.