Jerry Dreesen

Snow Angels

Snowfall. The neighborhood still asleep. This morning I imagine my little boy eager to put on his coat, boots, red cap and scarf, mittens with strings through the sleeves. He'd run headlong in the snow, make his first snowball, throwing at some imaginary foe. He would stop for a moment, arms outstretched, head tilted back to catch a snowflake on his tongue. He'd do, then, what every child does in new snow: fall back into the embrace of a snow angel, arms and legs flailing to make it fly. He'd look back at me then, standing at the window, his touchstone. Of course he never saw snow or snow angels, or knew that they, when no one is looking, lift themselves up and disappear.

february morning –
wiping frost from
my son's gravestone