--it's impossible to breathe, your name
like a cold bit in my mouth
and I hear the snow too --this close

nothing but our names
and the sky is drained as if marshes
or swamps or the heart
where suddenly there's no more rain

nothing to freeze or melt
or cry yanking my mouth

--all you can hear
is my side to side without moving
or stomping my lips on the snow
or even this tree whose leaves
when they are wanted most

--nothing will warm this snow
or my still damp cry on its way
through the Earth.