Brrr

39 degrees! Where did May go?

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The sun flatlining the horizon, the wind
off the Atlantic hard enough to swallow—
arctic, manic and first thing—
the morning beach walk north lasting less
than half an hour, while you've stood
in the middle of the room that long
trying to get your breath back to normal.
It seems to take all the time there is,
as if a flake of ash burning off the sun
had entered at the mouth, turned ice,
and had, in slow-borne seconds, grown

-- Stanley Plumly, from "Eleven"