The sky
spits snow flakes at
an angle you embrace
from the warmth of your apartment.
Hearsay,

all of
it. Till you risk
everything, layer up,
go outside where the real poems
await

their fate.
Do you dare dig
one out with the toe of
your left running shoe? Pick it up,
hold it

in your
gloved hand, tuck it
into the inner breast
pocket of your extreme cold, red
jacket.

What you
salvage indoors
from the thaw will become
your next savage scream to scratch the
silence

open,
to study its
contents. Even nothing
left means you’ve captured the sum of
this now.