Dark the windows pressed with rain
and the condensed breath of winter.

Crackling the wood reduced to glowing ash,
the hum of iron heating,

and beneath the dripping trees, a feral cat,
a cat with no home and too much fear to stay,

picks over food fit for foxes,
finds too little that will serve,

her face in the torchlight not wild,
not tame, but full of sadness.