Cold
“it is years from my first books
and much the colder”
1.
the dogs’ water’s froze.
all the ice the whole house has
cracks if you just walk on my porch.
I have half a bushel basket
muddy onions in the kitchen
and the cat I keep in the house
all day it's so cold out
but he climbs in them onions and shits there.
2.
the winter's night
like a insect’s noises
(the dry high pitch't
screaming of freezing
the snow’s sound in the forest
on the trees’ leaves left
a flake light wacking the bark
a black limb as thin as a thin black
line’s got makes
3.
I have for
got my skin
my body a
itch to me
inside my
clothes only
my ass to
touch the cold
for days: I
strip't naked
for a scratch
watch my line
of chest drop
to my waist
my penis
bold as a
chubby boy
in the cold
is
4. my bath
I look at my teeth
through my breath
in the mirror
the bathswaterssteaming
the cold
5.
a cold old Amish woman a grey
dress and sweater
her silver hair
pull'd back in a fray'd grey scarf
her children lay in her hips
the snow in the toe of her boot
the smooth skin of winter and
eyes as a blue moon’s
6. snow’s flower
one day it melts a little
and sees through to the soil a little again
and are as small as flowers in all the snow
7. love songs
This is one of those poems I must end
and bother with it until I can end
it (I have a slight fear of freezing
from lying too long in the cold
* * *
I put my hands over my ears and hop up and down
I clutch myself with both hands at the shoulders
I hop harder and watch my breath the color of snow and
I can scarcely move my mouth by now as if I was speaking
* * *
there is as warm as a sun in your eye
Copyright
C
