The snow came like a wave of old women, all white hair and whiskers, peck, peck, poking at the cabin’s window glass. You shivered. My stomach growled. Webs wreathed the cold. I imagined a spider’s glisten, knew we had escaped the world, but not its meanness.
You made a fire with chair legs, arms.
You talked of spring, blueberries on the branch, salmon in the sea.
‘If I go first,’ you said. ‘You may cut me up and eat.’
Always the romantic. I doubted I could wait and swept my hand down your back. Where would I sink the knife?