February Country

February is a country all its own
a place where icicles gleam grey as sleet
no black, no white. Your shadow disappears
and takes your name away.

Cold hunger bites and cracks the stone
and walls close in, but cannot hold the heat.
A frozen trap that’s lined with faces, dear
to someone you once were.

What calls your name? A meal of frozen bone
a cry of wind, a burning in your feet
a nameless appetite, an unvoiced fear.
The last line ends in white

Inspired by the legend of the Wendigo, especially as told by Algernon Blackwood.

Also by this.