Familiar Scents

The winter picks and pries at the frost tinged mat

of wiry hair covering my face,

icy needles winding their way

to nip at the underlying skin.

I hunch deeper into my scarf,

head lowered against the silent gusts

that slice through my many layers.

I grin fiercely as another onslaught of wind

shivers and warps the branches overhead,

causing the barren tree, somehow both alive and dead

in the deepening winter dusk,

to creak violently. 

Sometimes, despite the gelid temperament and temperature

of the evening,

it is safer to find my own way home --

sometimes a passenger's seat is simply

an opportunity for me to hurt us both.