Through an accidental crack in the curtain 

I can see the eight o'clock light change from 

charcoal to a faint gassy blue, inventing things



in the morning that has a thick skin of ice on it 

as the water tank has, so nothing flows, all is bone, 

telling its tale of how hard the night had to be



for any heart caught out in it, just flesh and blood 

no match for the mindless chill that's settled in, 

a great stone bird, its wings stretched stiff



from the tip of Letter Hill to the cobbled bay, its gaze 

glacial, its hook-and-scrabble claws fast clamped 

on every window, its petrifying breath a cage



in which all the warmth we were is shivering.