December came on bitter winds,
I sat with frosty breath and frozen fingers
         along the banks of the Clinton River
in the dead of winter stuttering with shivers
     thinking how much I love this cold.
Drank from my flask a bitter searched the white
    horizon for the signal that you were still awaiting me
as I shriveled coldly, doubting, the wind
       could ever cease, or bitter
cold would ever warm or
     flasks would fill
and lied down.