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.