Winter Ritual

“Winter either bites with its teeth or lashes with its tail.”

– Proverb

“Looking up, she showed him quite a young face, but one whose bloom and promise were all swept away, as if the haggard winter should unnaturally kill the spring.”

-Charles Dickens

Winter Ritual

In the bowery

The patrol vans

Crawl

Ever so slowly

At first light

Looking

Left then right

Scouring each

Alley

Never knowing

Where the next one

Will be found

Easily identified

The blue color

Of lips

The rigid form

The cold

Of each

Who escaped

Their pain

Freezing quietly

Into the night

Zipped in for eternity

Body bags

Not a fashion statement

Potter’s field

Not a destination

3000 miles away

I saw my father’s eyes

Closed

Bisous,

Léa