"Winter in a Western State"

I still thirst for frost, the porous necktie of nuded boughs, winter's chandelier on ledges; Half-longing for air that snacks on my bones and resuscitates my arm hairs, O cannibal wind! O wound wind! The glassy stalactites that double as wolf-mouths, snarl-sharp and ready to pounce on this etherized flesh And skies like bleached denim pulled over the horizon's split legs, the white that fills an infinity loop— I still miss dancing for the solstice in mile-thick thickets, our arms the wings on totems, spelling out vowels from profane alphabets, But on this coast, the fever never breaks, the terra-black storm never shudders up the daily sediment Thunder's abdominal growl doesn't rustle our restless half-sleeps, suture the tears of incalculable half-lives Birds don't leave or return, pock the air en masse like a new world plague or a dusty smattering of day-stars Skin won't meet skin on especially furtive terms, conspiring and conjoining to push out the chill— I still remember my city as an empress huddled in ermine; Tonight, it's falling fast enough, the weatherman says, to bury her completely