“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
