the snow was hungry for words.

blank mouth open--
she's hungry for words-- she's waiting
for another poem-- the snow
is here to claim a piece of our
tongue-- she's jealous of lips--
of teeth-- of whispered memories 
from either side of a bed too small
for either of us to sleep on--
she's laying her body on the door steps--
pleading for our dictionaries--
what can we do but appease her--
i tell you to grab your favorite book
from the glass shelf--
rip out a page from the middle--
the first chapter--
the last page so at least she gets
to know the ending--
thread it under the door--
in a glass bottle-- tell
the snow your free to read aloud--
that's what her plan was all along--
hold us here captive until
we had nothing left to do
but to read our lives into
her blankness-- so hungry she'd
eat the apostrophes from our
eye brows if we weren't careful--
she likes most when we
talk without words--
tries to build herself a body 
collecting at the ankles of
the trees--
she's trying to be sexy--
undresses herself with
cough & flurry-- 
somehow she can only become
more pornographic--
what the snow really wants is
to taste those things we
say without letters-- holds
our vowels
in the ice between her thighs--
the snow is looking for
the one thing that makes us
human-- the scream--
the fracture of all those
words we used to build
a book with--
bleeds ink from pages--
bleeds blood from 
gums-- the snow
wants you to teach her how
she can scream like you--
open the back door 
& let her consume all
that has rattled around within 
your bones-- the memory 
of you past without the alphabet
to chew on-- this snow
is so ravenous you lose
all that was left of your language
there with the door
swinging open open open--
your mother tells you to
stop letting the snow
in the house but you can't--
it is already too late--
you already speak cold-- lay your
body on the welcome mat
& come the grass for
any letters left that you might
have dropped--
you find the first page
of your favorite novel-- 
silent petition the snow
to read to you now-- it's her turn--
take the pages 
in  a gallop of wind--
pluck off each letter--
tossing them one by
one like grapes down your throat--
teach her there are words other
than a scream that make us human--
the-- a whistle-- a sustained hum--
the rocking of our mother 
in the wooden chair by our
bedside 
who tells us it's okay to 
let the snow take our words--
it's only temporary--
everyone deserves a chance to 
speak-- even if they don't
know what to do with the 
words once they steal them.