Warming up, round 3

It is dark

And the park is so cold

There is ice clinging to the hairs in my nose

My socks are soaked

From melted snow

And I’m tired of this shi(f)t,

For real though

Can’t lock the lodge until the last party blows

Oh! My! Freezing! Toes!

We’ve still got three hellish hours to go

Part of me hopes the party people are having fun, I mean it! No joke

But the other part of me wants them to gtfo

Because the leather of my boots

Is sopping wet

Every sloshing step I take

I feel frost prickling

—and the salt brine pickling—

My cold-soaked skin

Numbness is resting against my veins

I’ve gotta get out of these boots

I’ve gotta drain these bitches and let them dry

‘Till the slush evaporates

Leaving nothing but glittering gray crystal stains

And dry dust!

Thankfully:

There’s a legacy of frozen toes in the parks department

And some fabled worker,

(A legend from an age now past)

Had the foresight or the need

To string up a drying wrack

A platform for our sopping wet gear

Roped to a pulley,

Rope frayed almost through

But still

Thread-strong enough to raise my boots

So I may toast them under the heater

And when I get home I’ll raise a glass

So I may toast That Nameless Worker of the past:

That inventor,

That genius

That laborer

That hero,

Who

— whether by foresight or by need—

Rigged this slipshod system, way back when,

And who

—over the years-

Dried countless boots and

Saved countless feet

Including these cold-shriveled toes that I call my own