I’m shivering with cold despite the heat in the house
and it’s probably because I barely eat anymore
having lost interest and pleasure in all things
outside the window wind tears leaves and flings them groundward
inside the ragged melody of my breath catches and hangs
as unimportant as my damp hollowed cheeks
I’m waiting on winter despite my chill
when those bruised and battered skies
brood heavy over the frozen land
I’m waiting on the winter soul
that freezes blood and rattles bone in cages of flesh
when crow caw dulled by cold white snow
is all the sound that comes
across the icy air and sallow fields
I’m waiting on the killing cold that blues
the skin of the exposed and distracted
that stings and burns in unrelenting detachment
the insides of abattoirs less drenched in hiemal frost
I will walk the land as frigid as your human heart
and damn the spring to come