Winter is an animal pelt
pegged down, stretched out to dry

and laden with long nights and burning lanterns.

Outside my window a cormorant balances
on a jetty – holding out its wings,
its magician’s cloak,

each feather separated by the wind.

The shortest month is still too heavy
to drag across the sky.

It is 6 a.m. and the air
has frozen down to its bones.

We are counting days, the thinness of them,
until the ground softens
and the geese gather on the wetlands

ready to tow away the skin.