Snowflake
By Susan Terris
 
Frost stencils windows.
In bed, boy on a sheepskin
burrows into darkness
as a woman kneels by his side.
Outside, boots creak snow,
and the sound of whistling
wraps night with bright ribbons
that ripple the air until
a dog-pack barks
and makes them fade.

I'll miss you, the woman says,
smelling sweet-hot boy-hair
and breath near her face.
Yes... the boy answers, as
his lashes butterfly her cheeks,
but I have our snowflakes.
Although she can't see them,
she knows they are there,
drifts of
odd, impossible colors

spanning walls and ceiling,
folded, folded, pinked with
shears into zig-zag labyrinths
neither child nor woman
could have dreamed.
When I look at them,
the boy says, even when
there's no whistling
and no dogs bark, I am
a snowflake and I can fly.