Ohio in Winter

Ohio in winter a tent of grey pitched
on vacant blue limbs curling like smoke 
Stinging cheeks, nostrils 
Stiff ground, stiff knees, both unyielding 
Ohio in winter sticks to your eyelashes,
runs down the inside of your glasses
The naked beauty of ohio in winter
overwhelms the shallow spring nest of my heart
I can not take you in as you would have me,
as peers meeting on the road
Soft flesh barricaded in strata of wool and down
To protect whom, you or me?