Three small winter scenes in the woods add up to a quiet portrait of damage. In the first, a speaker crouches by a fire ring and holds out their hands toward a circle of snow. The gesture is stubborn and a little absurd, and it suggests a longing for warmth that the landscape can't give.
The second section turns bleak and factual. Melting snow reveals dark spots on laurel leaves, which the speaker nicknames "coal pox," as if the forest were sick. The poem names the cause plainly: distant power plants send acid and metals into the rain and snow. The flat, almost report-like tone makes it more unsettling.
The last scene offers a lighter note. A feral cat picks her way through the woods, and a squirrel scolds her long after she's gone. The squirrel's tail, "a question mark come quivering to life," seems to ask what the poem leaves open. The mood is watchful and wry, with anger held in check by close attention to small living things.