bend the criss-crossed lines on my skin like heat off the glistening pavement,

like the pulling back of a loaded bow, only to ease your efforts to shoot,

with the target having moved, perhaps,

releasing your fingers not in a burst of silent force,

but gently, with uncertainty,

like the stripped and pale twig-branch that splits into its peers yet skinnier than itself,

(stripped, yet almost fuzzy, like first mustaches)

stark against the yellow-grey masses flooding north as if summoned by the mountains' gravity.

they flow deliberately,

quick like cars from up above,

dark like crow's wings against the new moon,

cold like faucet water at night,

meandering like sunlight dancing through windows or afternoon leaves,

looming like tanks,

vast and omnipresent like the dark, heavy, impossible-to-place dread of recurring dreams,

flat like the smell of gas

deep like an ache in the neck.

this is how you must warm my hands in the space between winter and spring.