in Boston
it doesn’t snow the way it used to

January nothing
day after dirty gray day

damp worse than freezing
sentences spoken drone

tired lips wounded
street any body stumbles

down raw-knuckled
among rubble a dream-bird

posts a sign on a rusty wrought-iron fence
reads WINTER: Everyone Welcome

to skate on thin black ice
barefoot, knife through my tongue

drown
come back snow flake—

purposeful grave
unchained senses coax

chilled-landscape late-night-walk-talk
snow’s perishable bank

_                           _ naked cold
warmed by open fire