Winter’s Mouth

Winter’s Mouth

Snow opened its mouth wide,

swallowing the road.

Cars huddled in silence.

Their windows clouded and dim.

Streetlights shivered alone.

I walked with my collar high.

Boots bit against the ice.

The world a single color.

Without voice. Without pulse.

Only the creak of my spine.

Death felt near in the air.

A whisper from the frost.

Its tongue brushed the earlobe.

Gentle as a lover,

cruel in its promise.

I thought of graves.

Sleeping under deeper layers.

Bones that do not protest.

When seasons pass them by.

When the ground grows heavy.

Yet even here beauty lingers.

In a crow’s wing cutting sky.

In smoke curling soft.

From a chimney alive with heat.

A reminder of breath. And fire.

Still the night stretched on.

An animal pacing the edge of the fields.

Its eyes silver and watching.

Its patience older than hunger.

I kept walking,

though silence pressed close.

The snow whispered names I did not know.

Each step sank deeper, as if the earth

wanted to take me into its mouth as well.