FIRST SNOW


By dusk the snow is already partially melted.  There are dark patches where the grass shows through, like islands in the sea seen from an airplane.  Which one is home?  The one I left as a child?  They all seem the same now.  What became of my parents?  What about all those things I started and never finished?  What were they?  As we get older we become more alone.  The man and his wife share this gift.  It is their breakfast: coffee and silence, morning sunlight.  They make love or they quarrel.  They move through the day, she on the black squares, he on the white.  At night they sit by the fire, he reading his book, she knitting.  The fire is agitated.  The wind hoots in the chimney like a child blowing in a bottle, happily.


© 2008 by Louis Jenkins


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