by SUZI MEZEI
I’m out of my depth – I don’t understand the snow.
I’ve cocooned my invisible body parts in wads of
tension, just in case the arctic gust cuts through
these borrowed thermals. I’m unsteady in my boots;
fresh from the mall (where I’d rather be), each
uncertain step inside afternoon’s ashen squall
gauged by you, measured for increase in
my acquaintance with these climes. And just to
cajole, you say that underneath the white crust
a million living creatures wait the winter out
in their tunnelled subnivean zone, ensconced in
frosted labyrinths and if night were to descend
from the immense crystal sky, we might hear the
shuffling of shrews or the crack of the lake’s diamond
skin. My drenched woollen hand burrows between
your abiding Gore-Tex gloves; devotion’s concealed inside
the vapour that flowers just beyond my blue lips.