I watch him as we handle our shovels,
Our weapons against the cold, beautiful beast.
His face and body are more of
The poet than me.
His face, long, wiry, grizzled it seems
From booze; his body narrow
And hard like a chisel that might
Carve out a metaphor from life’s mountain.
My face is soft, my body
Plush as a pillow, more suited for
Clown than a bard.

In the snow, with perhaps ice underneath
That could kill, we navigate to do the winter work,
Cleaning our properties,
Not knowing each other, or talking too much, 
but one round soft poet
Is making assumptions. 
One soft poet is thinking in the whiteness;
and the other seemingly true man shovels obliviously,
And the cold, 
the cold touches us like we were both animate men of snow.