It’s usually said
That your fingers go numb first.
That the cold gets to your hands even through layers upon layers of thick cloth that are meant to protect it.
That you can’t tightly grab onto a lifeline when you freeze to death,
Unlike how you would in any other near-death scenario.

Next is your toes,
Your feet follow your hands, losing the feeling in them.
It’s funny, in the way that one of the first things you learn in life is to crawl and walk,
And when you’re on your knees in front of death, you lose the ability to do so.

The next to go is your ears,
They go numb too, making the world sound muffled like it’s underwater.
No hearing people screaming your name as you succumb to the cold,
Only silence in the path to the end.

Your nose goes next,
Feeling like it’s turned to ice or stone,
Smells become distantly unknown,
Only a little into freezing over.

Next are your cheeks—the rest of your face.
Red from the chill as they would in the heat
Except the cold is much more merciful in killing off your nerves before it does you.
It’s a plausible question,
Whether it hurts to smile more because your face throbs or because you’re drowning in your demise.

And then goes your chin.
It’s hard to communicate when you’re dying,
Less so to call for help,
And more so to say goodbye to everything you know.
It’s going to happen eventually,
And when it happens, you can’t guarantee you’ll be able to say goodbye,
Or even want to in the first place.

Check in impatiently
hauling light luggage -
downturned eyes,
bundled fifties,
skull packed with sickly
sugarplum notions

Stiff key-card door and
three hanger closet -
leave your mittens, jacket,
and conscience dangling

Towels
cotton-knit sandpaper
no softer than well-trafficked
threadbare tawny-port carpet and
your hands and feet pretend
not to feel it

nervously,
a bit numbly,
you notice her standing
with glacial stillness
moments away from
the foot of the bed

Two crooked lampshades and
dim headboard lights
close their eyes when
the mattress springs
first compress,
the air tingling
with dustbunny snowflakes

This room is too dark now,
something like snowblind,
but you don't really want to see
do you?

Frostbite when she touches you
and somehow this bed
is more welcoming
than your own

you'll remember her
february fingertips
and hailstone hair,
a sensation of northerly winds
strange how heavy the comforter feels
sprawled across your skin

you envision an ice slab,
see it suffocate
a slow-flowing river,
and your breath quickens
if only because your lungs
have been crushed

then, just before hypothermia,
she leaves,
lights off,
wallet lighter,
you stay whiteknuckled, lightheaded,
half-consumed by a snowdrift,
beneath the duvet -
dazed

your tongue sits confused,
having asked for peppermints
and been given ice cubes instead

and when you finally rise,
and thaw your limbs
and try not the slip
on the black ice
she always leaves
by the door,

Try to forget
you paid
hourly rates
and shed your clothes
that you might find warmpth
in a blizzard