Codex: Frostbite.

CODEX: FROSTBITE

   the cold took the life
   out of him left him
   stumbling into spring

   the cold took the life
   he might have had left
   and left his hands like base-

   ball mitts feet toeless
   inside the charity of new
   sneakers stumbling duck-

   footed out of the cold
   that took from him the last
   scrap of laughter the fool-

   hearty joie de vivre
   that once kept him
   alive cold or not

   the cold singed toes
   turned them into root bulbs
   fingers into overripe plums

   the cold took beauty
   and left instead bitter
   hope the dream at last

   floating inside the sleep
   of waking the drugged sleep
   that wouldn't notice the cold

   floating in the waiting dark
   the sleep that overtakes
   cold and leaves him

   stumbling alone beautiful
   barefoot boy the black man
   stolen in a danse macabre

   snapping clean against the cold
   hard bed of streets the un-
   bending rule to keep

   such cold away from decent
   folks such fear in trembling
   bones such alone alone alone

   without a home to speak of
   without a wife to tuck the sheets
   or child to put the kettle on

   to keep the cold away away
   where it cracks like an eggshell
   a blue streak in the thin

   ice of bruising a break a burn
   of cold the insult of loss
   at night in the dimness of door-

   ways where business has ended
   and everyone no one sees what
   lies there in that bundle of rags

   someone's brother someone's child
   where the wind whips debris into air
   thin as a river waiting under the ice

Colleen J. McElroy teaches English at the University of Washington. Editor-in-chief of The Seattle Review, McElroy has published 14 books, some of which have been translated into Russian, Italian, Arabic, French, German, Malay, and Serbo-Croatian. McElroy has won the Before Columbus American Book Award, and received a DuPont Fellowship, two Fulbrights, two NEAs, and a Rockefeller.