Dave Bonta strings together a series of short, haiku-like moments from one long winter, and the result feels like a notebook kept by someone who walks and watches closely. Snow taps on a bald head like a woodpecker, a potato is "flaky as old wood," a porcupine squeezes through a deer fence, and mouse tracks cross the snow. Humor keeps surfacing, as when the speaker jokes about being born "ass-first" under a cold moon. Beneath the jokes sits a quieter note of unease: a former coal town living "off a shadow," a mountain that will someday bury us, an "afterlife of seeds."
The speaker seems restless and half asleep, tunneling through the days in cabin-fever fashion, yet also alert and curious. The mood is wry, hushed and contemplative. The final lines turn outward, praising wind and trees for dancing with everything they've got, as if winter's stillness hides plenty of energy.