January Cold Spells

Coastal living is unforgiving and everything is up:
seas and snow-piles, the wind pushing down
city streets and careening over brittle fields.
The maples accept it and offer themselves bare
with outstretched limbs, leafless idols awaiting
May’s pilgrims. The rest of us may be left desperate
and are claustrophobic by necessity. So many layers
of wool and fl annel, so much attention to heat:
the storage of dry wood, towels stuffed under doors,
windows locked and sills sealed. Mornings bring
stiff warnings: extremities must be protected,
and the papers urge care in the choice of gloves.
We complain in spite of our hardiness but leave coats
behind when running out, just for a minute,
to the mailbox. We have other ways of keeping warm:
soups and stews, fat breads and pasta heaped
on beds of tomato and cheese. We forget
we live here by choice and would rather gripe
than quietly endure, tempting frostbite with
our own frigid hubris. Even those of us who dare
emerge uncovered have warm, beating hearts,
and our nights are abrupt and haunted
by the rolling specter of the oil truck passing outside
as we cling to one another under heavy blankets
in equatorial dreams.