Curse of the Snowman's Wife

Dining al fresco in December,
jogging thrice around the park
in the dead-bang cold of winter,
joining polar-bear enthusiasts,
his stubby pallid arms churning
the frigid waters of the sound,
he forever serves up the same
marmoreal gaze to one and all:
waitresses, barmen and bellhops,
friends and relatives (his or hers),
business rivals who can never
plumb the depth of his icy reserve,
and of course his very own wife.
 
Abed he is equally unthawable.
His movements are tres precise,
his performance always skilled
but for its chilling lack of passion.
He descends upon her from some
stoic and distant Olympian height,
truly impassive as a god or statue,
his pale rotund visage passing
like a bloodless arctic moon,
his blunt icicle fingers roaming
the bared terrain of her body,
pimpling her flesh and cooling
her thighbones to the marrow.
 
After he leaves for the office
she huddles beneath the covers:
a woolen blanket, two comforters,
a colorful afghan crocheted by her
aunt in California where the sun
can shine like a burning ingot.
Still her teeth chatter and her
muscles tense against the cold.
Still she shivers uncontrollably.
 
The floe of his glacial contempt
has filled these rooms far too often
for them ever to feel warm again.
 
 (Appeared in my collection The Complete Accursed Wives)