winter clothing

Something I wrote when I was in Switzerland over Christmas... It wasn't the loveliest winter really.

You can always breathe mountain air. Thin and cold,
A streaked silk shawl flung loosely around your body.
I am blowing it through my nose now, like smoke
Billowing through a weirdly shaped chimney, like steam
From an angry Spanish bull. But this is Switzerland,
Where the Alps rise like blocks of cheese, and are speckled grey
By old, hard ice. Where shoes sink into yellow snow,
When all the tourists have gone back. To Japan, to Germany,
To some place where the air is staler, and warmer and stays
Firmly on the ground, like a corset tied tight. And as more flakes fall,
Baby powder, scaly dandruff, you wonder where
That postcard came from.