Cold

The first chill glided up my back like the fin of a shark,
Unzipping the suit of water into two half-spheres of quivering
Silver fishes. It passes, after I tugged the gaping curtains shut against
The visiting ghosts.

By then my fingers turned to popsicles, and I unclenched them with a
Hiss, starting a spark-less fire, and watched whispy
Pale moisture uncoil from my touch, frozen-food-style. I blow air at them,
Hoping to feed the dead fire, but the cold is tugging at my fingers
Like a baby mistakenly suckling on a corpse’s clammy nipple.

If someone slit my throat then, I would steam pocketfuls like a pie,
And my blood would have cooled to sludge, heaving forward
Reluctantly, like molten, like an obese pet. Some cleaner would curse
Under their breath as they wipe up the spilt berry slushie.

I exhaled steam, laboured to breathe, resist chatter.
Even my thoughts slowed, speech slurred tongue like some
Snowed in machine. Ice in my joints, I crack them like bubbles.
Unload to survive. Anything below the hem
I have disowned, the dead baggage. I am not their master.

The ghosts had slipped in and are chilling in my bones,
Comfortably snug and sharp like pinching metal between teeth,
Scrape scrape, and my hair rises.