Willingly I went under the spell, outside to the back yarde to lay down on the ground with my dog. The grass was yellow and leathery with Winter. Hawks circled blacke against the stacked clouds. I wore a white cardigan over my blue nightgown still draping me on Saturday

at Noon.

I felt eyes upon me from below. Humid Queen Summer. Furry Queen Spring. A thousand insects who could not crawl upon me because they were too colde and stiff with Winter. They could not move to swarm the sounde of my blood but the warmth of my body hypnotically opened their eyes on Saturday

at Noon.

All hail Winter Red scars upon my Winter White legs bare below the hem of the all season gown. Testimony that all of Nature longs to taste me all the year long. Yet this is when we fall in love again. Naked Queen Winter provokes the longing. The crave. The fireside fever baked prickly at dusk after we ache breathless in colde wind on Saturday

at Noon.

We devote ourselves wholly to the enchantment and fertility of the coming Queens in such blinde bliss that we allow the bites of a thousand creatures to have our eyes delighted and tongues drunk on the champagne of photosynthesis. We grow softe and pale in the waiting. Wan and wanton. Feeling most reckless in short hours under short rays, taunting the biters and stingers with teasing closeness on Saturday

at Noon.

— Mercy