Okay, so the snow’s all but disappeared but I came across this poem I wrote  a while back and think it suits January.  Even, I, a sun-worshipper, find the idea of an ice-hotel enticing-and they do exist . The picture here is of the one in Sweden

Cocktails at the Ice-Hotel

Soon, this place will be a pool.

Who built it, no-one knows.

A polar sun shines through the walls

promising a rainbow chaser

even though the floor is melting under your hand-luggage.

The barman’s no Tom Cruise, for sure;

he creaks rather than glissades behind the glacier-mint bar.

One night at the Ice-Hotel

with the partner of your dreams

who has exited behind a sculpted curtain

so you go ahead without him,

running a cool finger down the cocktail menu, slipping past

Ice-Maiden, Glacier, stopping at Snowy Peaks-

absinthe in a frosted cone, meringue clouds,

then letting your tongue dip and dive

while the barman looks on,

head cocked to one side like a terrier.

No time to wonder where your companion has gone.

as the floor liquefies some more under your soft soles

and the trees tinkle in the night like dropped teaspoons.

and the moon’s steel visor falls down

and the next cocktail chimes in its shaker.