That Winter

Please tell me
why you took my
hand nestled in mittens,
and held them inside
your own hands.
A bundle of wet wool
in the falling flakes.


Why you kissed me
Eskimo style at my front door,
our winter walk dwindling
to a close, our noses
redder than Christmas bulbs
on my tree inside the warm house.


It snowed too much that year,
drifted too deep
and the poorly developed
Wal-Mart photos prove it,
taller than your stocking cap,
and you held my hands
until they were always warm.


Your boots crunched to the middle
of the frozen pond in the
woods, behind the old cabin
you slept in on Christmas Eve.
You called me from the ice 
and told me stories about the
stars you said were brighter 
there. 


My red telephone 
on the night table
I got when I was nine,
had been so excited
to make prank calls
on, to endlessly chat with 
my BFF on,
rang every night
that winter,
2 am sharp.


I forgot how to sleep,
but only to listen 
to your sounds and breathing.
The snow forever
illuminated in the street lamps
of Suburbia.


You called me 
each night from
someplace, new
old or cosmic,
I never knew.
Payphone, cell phone,
never mattered.


The snow
melted in a rush,
made the grass stand up
green for St. Patrick's Day,
which approached too quick,
stealing away the snow's 
clean carpet,


the red plastic phone
stopped ringing
in the middle of the night;
stopped ringing at all.
The trees painfully grew
new leaves,
and I carefully grew
without you.