Dave Bonta's "Isolated" is a very short poem, and its stillness is part of what it says. A speaker sits alone, aware of a cold that has somehow "grown into a fire." The image is odd and a little unsettling: the chill hasn't gone away, it has turned into something that burns. That could be illness, like a fever, or it could be a feeling of loneliness so intense it becomes physical. The poem doesn't say which, and the uncertainty adds to its quiet tension.
The lines that follow are plain and spare. "All alone in my body" makes the speaker feel shut inside themselves, and "the evening comes on" suggests the day, and perhaps a life, winding down. Then comes the flat statement "I am old." The final line, "I could almost speak," is the most moving. It hints at a wish to reach out, or to say something that matters, paired with the sense that it won't quite happen. The mood is solitary, hushed, and tender.