Anticlimax

Here is winter, throwing hook to skin

With each wretched blast, eyebrows

Caked in drizzle, the very sort of

Frosting I despise—if you’re going

To ice the thing, make it a firm

Wilton cream with Crisco enough to

Coat my greedy tongue and clog my

Hardening arteries,a sort of pleasure

So fine it kills, not this puny tasteless

Glaze that drips and drapes itself across

The eyelids, down the nose. Come on,

You bastard, stop with the teasing and

Give us a proper spanking—break open

Those pillows of cloud and let the down

Come falling down with the night so I

Can wake to a big fat blanket quilted

By the feet of birds, blinding white

Beneath blue sky and the slant light of

Morning sun. But no—just days more of

The dreary same ahead, January too slack-

Spined to get himself up and out of bed.

1/25/2023