Frostbite

In July

Photo by Maximilian Zahn on Unsplash

Frostbite

It nibbles your toes 
It nibbles your nose
It filches your fingers too
Stay away from the frost
Your body’s the cost
Have a night with the hoar 
You’ll rime ever more
With lips undeniably blue

Photo by Bharath Sriraam on Unsplash

Dead Meat

She held his fingers up between them, they were waxy and black. Blue-green where the dead meat met the blistered red of the rest of his hand. 
“I’m so hungry,” she said, “and you won’t feel a thing.”

Photo by Nastaran Ebadi on Unsplash

Snowman

“Why is the floor all wet?”
“We built a snowman and invited him in to play.”
“You look so cold.”
“He wants to play inside you, too, Mommy.” 

Eleanore

“Ma’am, I live up the street and I have a snowblower, just wondered if you’d like me to clear your drive for a few bucks.” He stood on Eleanore’s front porch in a puffy parka and held out a gloved hand. One of those bearded bums in skinny jeans, she thought.

“A few bucks?” Eleanore shivered in the cold draft from the door.

“Yeah ten, five whatever ya got.” The man moved his hand closer to Eleanore, she thought the begging gesture rude and tugged on the door to close him out.

“No thank you, my son will be over later.”

“You’re loss.” He shouted as she shut the door.

“That’s what you think.” Eleanore beamed as she hurried from the door to the loveseat in the front window. She grabbed her tea from the coffee table and curled up on the floral cushion. This weather worried at her bones, but there was some good to be had in it. She didn’t need to part the curtains, they were sheer, and her eyesight was still good enough to see through them.

She watched the man stomp through the snow down her driveway. Cursing her out as he went, no doubt. Calling her all the things the young call the old, useless, smelly old hag. When he reached the sidewalk and turned right to go speak to the neighbors instead of left to go home she nearly shrieked with glee. A cackle, she thought, I’m cackling like the old witch I am. She parted the curtain a little, she had to, she just had to see this clearly.

The man screamed as his feet flew out from underneath him. He landed heavily on his back and Eleanore felt a tingle of pleasure in her gut as his head bounced off the sidewalk. He tried to rise, his back bowed oddly. Eleanore could see his arm pitched at the wrong angle. She’d iced the walk the night before. How lucky someone should slip before lunch. She sipped her tea and nibbled a cookie. It was exactly seven minutes and fifty-three seconds before anyone came to help.