the wind shakes the windows in their dressings like a child trying to wake its dead mother . you touch my face with the back of your hand, soft as the things that will be tanned in the slurry of our boiled- brains .      there is a clank from the cast radiator that     musters courage      up from floorboards below .   the mice run
scared.
your brow is deerskin that is pulled formfitting across my    dry,
      cupped           fingers
it wants small holes put in it as it                                      wears
suppler
into
a look
just
like kissing wool

the
heather inside the layers
that get put on-


wicking off like collagen

as the wintry madness finds us