Hedgehog in Winter

I sense outside this entwined, closed in tall.
Before the Long Cold I gather tussocks
and twigs together. I have eaten all
I need to see me through this long ice pocked.

I slow tapping inside my chest. I don’t
sleep. Occasionally, I wake to try
a feast of crinkly and soft, or make point
of moving my sodden nest dome to dry,

or if my closed in tall is opened out
to cold, or shifted by burrowing sniffs,
I sort through the thin dead that clatter out
from Above, my paws and spines comb stiff

into shape so wet can’t seep and just warm enough to slow in to await Long Warm.