Her name tells of how
it was with her.

The truth is, she did not speak
in winter.
Everybody learned not to
ask her questions in winter,
once this was known about her.

The first winter this happened
we looked in her mouth to see
if something was frozen. Her tongue
maybe, or something else in there.

But after the thaw she spoke again
and told us it was fine for her that way.

So each spring we
looked forward to that.

~swampy cree indian narrative poem