Sorry I Can’t Join You for Shinny

They say that it’s so cold here

folks will gorge on ice cream

to warm themselves up.

It’s the kind of day

a puck will feel relief—

freed from being thwacked

because it’s adhering to a

glassy pond’s veneer, like a sucker

that is stuck upon a seat—

engulfed in someone’s slobber.

No one’s drilling holes

upon the lake, juddering with their

poles like masochists.

Trout are forced to

bore beneath the silt,

assent to muddy quilts

of hibernation.

And no one can bait with worms,

since they’re stiff like Mr. Noodles

before the kettle froths in fog.

The wings of every junco?

Squeak like rusty hinges

when they part.

Lubricants are clogged

inside their cans, hardened like

the top of crème brûlée.

Everything is grounded,

for each micron

above the drifting

drops the air a half-degree.

The wind chill’s

minus a million, sporting a

balaclava like a thief.

No one’s pumping gas—

lava couldn’t flow if

it were here.

You’d fly on up to

Pluto if you could. Its dark-

side feels like Tucson

compared to this. But fire

has gone on furlough,

laws of physics don't

apply. Glaciers creep

ahead, as though it's the

Pleistocene.

Even the snowmen shiver.

Frozen in their

frowns. Buttons that are limp

as though they cling by a single

strand. Carrots like the

stab of icicles.

They’ve lost their

arms to frostbite; fingers having fused

as if a club. There isn’t a parka

on the planet

that could possibly keep them comfy;

down that’s cornflake-crisp,

snap at the slightest touch.

Every flimsy top hat 

pinned with rime.

A sound like grating velcro

if you try to peel one off.

They’re not going anywhere.

Neither are you.

Look—the Michelin

Man’s not stepping out-of-doors,

despite his tired rolls of

roly-poly, 50 pairs of socks

inside his boots.

It’s so frigid

Hell’s congealed at last.

Demons & the damned

are seeing their breath for

the very first time. The Devil’s

gone off skiing,

his red of nostrils

sting from appled air.

Saints will see him coming—

their every halo

buckling from its burden,

when the sun can seem

a multiverse away.

My hockey stick has bonded

to the lamppost.

Like a tongue which took a

dare despite our pleas.

Andreas Gripp

January 24, 2026

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