cold

cold

---

the night is cold.
                 ---Anonymous
---

cold.

pestilential
pernicious
damnable

cold.

a cold
that squats
wherever
it

may
choose

to
sit
or
lie.

this
is not
the winter
happyland

of Disney/
Dr. Seuss;

it
seems
rather
like

the
bleak
landscape

of Poe,
of Hitchcock/
Hayes,
of King,

and yes,
of the likes
of Crichton.

I
think
of
plugged,

to
the point of
frozen,

arteries.

I think
of
deep-space
frost.

I think
of
naked
emperors,

those slick-feathered
black-and-whites
trooping
laborly---

so to
insensitive 
human eye
without
apparent
purpose---

over
windblown
gritted
rifted-ice

Antarctica.

and
I think
of
twitchy krill

reeling

in those
nearby south,
dense-brined
ocean depths.

and too of
dwarf-world
Pluto
cast

in its
enduring
near exile
from

the
planetary
System.

---

but here,
just now
outside:

at subzero
degrees
Fahrenheit,

ambient
dusk
settles,

dims
cold
of light

and grows
temp-colder
momently,

its mercury
elevator
in mid-descent
sinking,

a

p
l
u
n
g
i
n
g

stone,

a dropping
anchor,

its mashing
wet
blanket
draping,

the alien
upside-
down
whole
of it

drooping,
pressing
couldn't-
care-less

across
the globe's
glacial
simpered

face.

its
numbing
silence
clamped
taut,

I
hear
not
a sound

strike
from out
of doors.

no foxes
bark,
not a coyote
yips,

no owl
hoots
even softly.

---

however,
indoors

the basement
furnace
stutters
breathy;

inside's
a dicey
sixty
degrees,

also
Fahrenheit.

the outer
day---

and its
dullard light---

is
absent,
quite
gone,
well done.

bone-
crumping
cold
encroaches

on
all
it touches

with heavy foot,

seems unending,
everlasting,
seems eternal;

it
will
not
stop,

will
not
quit,

will
not
end.

will not.
not now.
not tomorrow.

not next week,
next month,
next year.

not ever.
never.

---

on
my way
to bed,

I
linger
to

s
   h
i
   v
e
   r

at
the back
door's

t
a
l
l

window,

look out,
alongside
the hand-
lifted
cloaking
drape's right-
side
edge,

from
under
long
johns

and

too thin
jacket

and

bogus-
warming
stocking
cap.

---

cold.
cold cold.

a godlike
implacable
shrewish
cold.

too cold
for winds to blow,
for
the mind to race,
for
grudging heart
to mourn.

or even
to care
much about
anything

at all---

even
about
itself.

two
white-tailed
deer,

both does,
their tails

tucked
in demure
salute to
gravity,

point
passive
down.

their breech
flag whites
well screened
from view,

they klatch
starkly,
darkly
skeletal,

vagrants
ghosted
wraithlike

near
patio's
far

close-in
fringe,

casting
crisp
shadows

that mirror-
profile
their shapes
without draft,

in recline
in one
dimension

on flat
Midwest
terra
firma,

moving/
twitching
moon-cut
moon-formed
shadows

that
lie
prostrate
plane,

that
lie
darker---

those ground-
hugging
shadows
pressed
so skintight
against
the urban
snow-veiled
drab gray,

the same
gray
that
masks
daybreak's
otherwise
brown-
yellowed
earth---

than
surrounding
felled/fallen
night.

the
does
do

not

see
me
spy.

here now
I pen
it
once more:

not
a sound
strains
through pane

to gain
my
exposed
and
parous
ear.

the one aimless
tastes,

but
without
eating,

a bristle brush
of iced
needles at
a snow-burdened
fir branch's
outer tip

within
easy
range

of her
e   x   t   e   n   d   e   d
neck.

the other
a few yards/
meters
away

paws

dispirited,
locked in
her cramped
dearth
of spirit,

in slow
motion
with crooked
right leg
engrossed

in listless
thrust at
crusted
surface
snow

the color
of
yellowed
teeth
were
it
daylight.

the first
joins
the second.

"Why
must you
paw
at the snow
like that?"

she
asks

in
her
plaintive
plain deer
body
language.

and
softly
too,
so as to
conserve
what is left
of winter-
sapped
precious
energy.

"To
see
if a thing
edible

lies

somewhere
here
beneath,"

the other
whispers
dumbly
after
protracted
pause

for
to consider
her answer
to such
a plainly
silly
question,

a question
that dares
not---

not at all---

deserve
serious
reply.

together
exhausted,
their breaths
wisp-smoke

the dry air,

at times
puffed
in synchrony,

at
other
times
not.

the
numbing
cold

chokes

their movements,
makes slightest
stirrings
molasses-

aching
slow.

---

it
is
then
I

entertain

thought
of
but

a moment's
erratic---
and quite mad---

impulse:

I'd
like to
sweep
aside
roughly

the bulky
schlepping
window's
curtain,

throw
open
the door
behind
it,

invite
them in
perhaps---

perhaps?
perhaps what?---

perhaps
to snuzzle
with me,

their core heats
prodding
whatever
remains

of
my own
for
to restore
itself

to an earlier,
nigh
forgotten
state,

for
to replace
the grim
relentless
cold

with something---
anything!---
better
than
what now

exists.

I don't,
of course.

I
drop
the hanging
drape's
limp
hem

from
my gloveless
hand

and
leave
them---
leave
the does,
that is---

there
outside
instead

and

shamble
off to bed
alone

for
the
night.

---

and
I
feel
oh
so
very
frigid
cold.