Hibernation

There are a few ways
to make a cocoon of your body,
to accentuate the length of the spine,
to make that affliction look barbed
and monstrous, to lean on the left side.
There are few ways to handle
a minor embarrassment,
or mishandle, or miscommunicate
or spiral from orbit and out
into the stars
and drink up the aether
like it was pina or wine.
There are less ways to walk back,
to tread the exact path you wandered
when an amble felt loose
and disconnected from fear,
before the dusk was setting in,
before the sleet licked with frost.
There are less ways to unfurl,
flesh - bare and vulnerable,
to eat up the sunlight,
to reconnect with the snow.
And so
if you find your mind has the breaks on,
harsh red beams teeming across the road,
honour it, hibernate with it,
leave the loam where it settled
in the crunch, crunch of your history
well alone as a bible on a bookshelf.