She asks for ice in a cup, then later
takes a hot water bottle to bed.
She stuffs strips of foil in the cracks
around the door frame, weighing again
if she has loved enough. Through the night,
the wind brandishes its hundred knives.
The eaves rattle as though the roof
were made of straw. Two blocks away,
the river has gone quiet under a quilt
of ice. This is just the beginning—
Everything leans inward or into itself,
but holds on to some fragment: the way
back out into the open lit by a moon
which paints even the smallest shadow silver.