Fighting Words: Broken Heating

Anthony Vahni Capildeo

Cold is a hard style.

    It strikes in straight lines.

    It lifts the roof tile.

Cold is a hard style.

Adieu the rondeau.

Let’s interrupt

your straight-line, pseudo-circular flow

by playing possum.

Instructions for making a blanket cave—

    So heavy

    nothing untucks.

Tunnel in.

Nose over tail.

    Stay lit.

Do not hibernate. 

No corpsing.

We are animal to cold

    in unexciting ways, 

    life-forms footnoting a stockpile,

camelids getting their good coats 

for winter’s interview

    in revoluted layers

    bounce potential

out of view.

Cold aims without fail,

    counts loss as gains.

Cold is a hard style.

    It strikes in straight lines.


This poem is part of a series. Click here to read “Fighting Words: Tea Fever,” here to read “Fighting Words: Arrivals,” and here to read “Fighting Words: Peace and All Good.”
Anthony Vahni Capildeo is a Trinidadian Scottish writer of poetry and nonfiction. They are a writer in residence and professor at the University of York.
Originally published:
September 8, 2025

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