Winter Poem

We live inside the cold
even as we tear our clothes off
from the heat. It slithers
away from warmth, the cold,
in great, writhing arcs,
even as icy daggers form
on its backside,
a demented rattlesnake fleeing
what it needs,
shaking and singing
a sad song,
the whole frozen way.
A trio of gray squirrels
wave their voluptuous tails
in passing.
A school of trout
woolen in their winter scales,
part, as the lone predator
slides below the thin ice
of an abandoned pond.
The snake licks its wounds,
dissolves in a hot bath
of its own, lonely blood.