The big snow

The winter stayed and left us defenseless,

overcome by the blur of white, we abandoned our principles of timekeeping.

We canceled the routines. We let ourselves fall back as children,

discovering snow angels. We wondered “How?”

How we had forgotten we are bound by our physical senses.

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How everything was buried,

awash in powder, our bodies the only movement. Recognizable figures

wandering across the empty landscape.

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We dug ourselves out of our front doors.

We dug each other’s cars out.

We drove very carefully and let the pedestrians go first, because

the pink in their cheeks made even ours sting.

When I stepped outside, wading deep into the snow, the cold air cut through my body,

and the world became brighter than its origins. I squinted.

I thought of blank pages, the way the narrative expands when given the time and space.

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The world was clear and dull and let us hear only what we needed to.

In a field of nothing, I watched a game of football.

Ice cold hands and unrestrained grins; barking laughter.

Snow forgives. It makes us wild, uncareful.

A body tackled into the ground, but none of us flinched. We trusted

the white matter. Matter, like matter, what matter

when the afternoon was vibrant. Brighter than bright?

To set down the tangible work we pursue and ask what all these long nights

with tired eyes really mean.

Three boys, twisted, tangled, collapsing together into the snow,

the sound muffled.

Against sensibility. Against the quiet. Against the way we isolate ourselves.

These bodies in tandem, the only thing worth remembering.