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I brave January from back door to shed.

My gait is easy pickings for the snow.

I’m awkward. I wobble.

But the fire is anxious for more logs.

Ice daggers in the air jab at me.

Winter is what pestilence would be

if it only had temperature to work with.

I suffer from it greatly. So I fill my own prescription,

oak and maple tossed into the hearth’s brick maw.

But even the warmest of blazes is only part-cure.

What’s the point of good health if I can’t take it with me.

That fire-place crackles but not like the wind blows.

I’m a prisoner of the warmest room in the house.

Come spring, I get time off for human behavior.