Like geese in the north,
I must flee from you when,
in your face,
I see the temperature cool,
your cheeks crinkle and turn the bright red
of an old maple’s dying leaves.

For soon your heart will be cold,
and the wind chill of your thoughts
will bring necrosis to
the most hot-flowing limbs:

I, who tends to run chilled,
will be dead in the day
with eyes frozen open,
the green of my irises
frostbitten to a dull gray.