Winters Cold Fist

A tempest night sky presses, my lattice windows shake, as if someone’s being thrown against them, or worse yet, a yeti's breaking in. They lock with little levers that seem far too flimsy to keep out the prying fingers of turbulence. We watched a man plodding outside - obviously a student from Alaska. He was talking on his phone, his breath a continuous, cold white cloud. He slipped, careering drunkenly but managed to stay upright by assuming a surfer-like crouch. “Where do you think HE’s going?” Lisa wondered. Forget fall’s polite, amuse-bouche of chill, we’ve been smacked, full frontally assaulted by the gigantic, cold-fist of winter. “Go on,” I said, to the weather gods last fall, like an unlucky gambler on a losing streak. “hit me!” Now I’m searching Amazon for “flannel underwear”.