Old Snow

The earth is iron,
The winds are bands of steel,
The snow is a pock-marked beggar-woman
Crouching at a street corner
Whining an old misery over and over.
They say she was white once, and a virgin.
But who remembers it --
Seeing her lie indecently huddled upon an iron earth,

Cringing under the strokes of the steel-band wind?