February Dragons

The sun summons dragons, knob-spined and snow-scaled, coming in smoking 
to stain the liquid-lit sky with ruby and ember and sometimes lashed pink
so that the denser hues fade into watery sea-colors, leaving a hot
rind so pale it melts into wings of iridescent night belly 
through which these dragons whip flawless, flinging stars at blue deeps
with their bristle-bark tails, teeth-needled and coir-clawed to the ridge
of their withers, spinning us into bright wind-scoured flames
until burning, we forest-slip another winter-lit day