Tonight I’m trying on
the skin of a bitch,
no great beauty
but certainly steely.
Acerbic, with a coat to the chin
and a slip of smoke so thin
against my whale bone body
cleaved such by the wind.
Each year evil is gifted nimbly
the day the frost trots in.
It settles first in the feet:
a twinkling in the skin.
A necromantic change
in me is coming,
coming ouch ---
sharp as a canine biting in.
Sterile as insect pincers
it runs in rivers,
until silver daggers
and rose cadavers
are all I’m left shivering in;
unsettling specimen
filled to the brim
with radio static
that transmits the horror
unfurling within ---
The knowledge that freezes
and clings,
and clings,
and clings:
this is how the yearly yield begins.