Venice, December
Ours are the only mouths
to taste with this smothering slow
touch, and the only steps
to sink like bellsounds and cave
deep into the marble snow.
Women who go to the window
to push their arms out to the snow
and then bring the shutters back in
follow us as we fall
past their eyes where the black night lives.
We are snowflakes at last, as the thick
never locked, never closed doors
follow us through squares of light
their windows have left on the snow.
Once again, warmth that falls,
again, though our tracks fill and slow.
