short days and long nights
isolated,
in the gloom
the winter's spirit
dry lips, cracked and chapped
gangrenous toes,
cold as jade
the cruel bite of frost
a cord of pine
crackling embers rise and burst
fall burning
doused in the snow
fevered dreams,
sweating
the sound of tires on wet roads
brown and briny
the slushy gutter
fading in the snowdrift
a slowing heart
the breath...expires
hypothermia
Kelvin measured nothing
in the wastes of Niflheim
where the siren Lorelie
sleeps in sheets of ice
