To Anna from Elsa

Roses are red…

(Like your lips, Anna, red and luscious as cherries plucked from the tree… Like your cheeks, soft as rose petals and ruddy as shining apples that are heaped in wicker baskets on golden afternoons… Like your golden-red hair that catches in the wind like autumn leaves, autumn leaves that glide on their own wild and reckless path – like you, my dearest sister, like you…)

Violets are blue…

(Like your eyes, Anna… The lands beyond Arendelle are rich and strange, sister. In the depths of the mountains, they say dwarves dig for sapphires, their faces made black in the pursuit of wealth beyond words. Yet the brightest sapphires in the dwarf-king’s crown are not so bright as your eyes. My palace of ice, blue as the heavens, is not so blue as your shining eyes. Your eyes put all of my works to shame, Anna… and if my works all stand for eons after my death, yet the world is deprived of the light of your eyes, then the world shall be robbed. For my magic is nothing to them.)

Sugar is sweet…

(Like the kisses with which you pepper my face when we awaken entangled… Like your voice when you take my hand in yours and tell me not to be afraid, for you are with me… More substantial than any god, you watch and protect me, you save me… Your voice is like the honey that spills forth from the honeycomb, like the sweet mead folk serve in DunBroch far away… Of course, Anna, you are sweetness itself. Happy Valentine’s Day!)

Just like you!