Cabin Insanity

Cabin Insanity


I know the blinding warden
Bumming cigarettes off old Death
Outside, back-to-back with an oak
In a reversed reaper's hood of white

Sometimes I hear him from windows
Imagining bony or plump pale hands
Whose fingers, if not transparent
Would otherwise freeze a deep purple

Rat-tat-tat...whoosh
And the tip of his mound blows away

Inside there is an inmate
Perhaps shivering under my covers
Or wiping dust around the cabin
Eluding only my snow-strained eyes

Asking his intent would prove futile
As turning when I feel his hovering hand
Inches from gripping my right shoulder
Cold as the warden's snowy breath

Blowing down the nape of my neck
As I hiked back to my winter lodge
So many weeks, months? ago
With provisions to last the snowstorm

Sometimes the worst of me wonders
If I should join the two outside
The inmate could come if he chooses
And all four of us could huddle together

Some would call that crazy
But then some would say the same for me
I think that friendship, if only illusional
Would contrast the pain of dying alone