Vision crowded with mass

                                          coronal

                             injections

—the pit he’d kicked in

the snow behind their untreated log cabin so shallow

he was shitting

on himself—                skin too numb to notice,

                                       was this one of the welcome numbs—White

Sallee copse too young to shield him

(had the window fog been cut)

from her, in that Norwegian wool

sweater of his she had on

and nothing else, mineral openness

of what they’d drifted downstream in, naked,

after the last thaw.
(They’d found the outhouse

abused, vengeful: racked

magazines white as though never inked;

      sunbeams—loping through

      clapboard gaps like

frost—crystallizing the cobwebs.

On balance,            unusable.)
                  If I could live every moment with a blistering winter wind on my face
Hairy, maladapted, numb

at its office. With winter he imagined breaking

fresh bread—and the crumb steam

went to ground, to ice, the taste of crust. Of salt.

He felt lust for himself.