Snow is falling today on the finches' green wings
as they chase at the feeder, chattering in our front yard.
 
And I think of my students from language arts
twenty years ago when the first flakes fell on the pavement
 
outside and I let them run out the classroom into the yard
to greet the flakes, that were for most of them,
 
the very first time they'd ever seen real snow, 
been in it and underneath its blessing breath.
                        

First thing today, I removed the sheets,
the pillow cases, duvet patterned
with purple, gold, and green design,
and set embroidered cushions aside.
Unfolding sheets crisp and cold, I
tucked the flaps beneath our mattress
smoothing dimples down rumpled creases.
I gently placed the cushions where you'll slip
below the surface, softly, 
with our dog sleeping at your feet, 
a novel falling from your hands.
                        

Until the kid drowned we called it the Lake Beach,
water the color of black tea surrounded by
bungalows slumped in shadows painted 
red like the rust on our bicycle spokes.
 
Those summers, we'd go there often,
wielding inner tubes and squeaky rafts,
paddle to the float where the big kids swam
dunking and splashing, or basking, then 
 
with crocodilian stealth, they'd dive 
underneath and burst to the surface, 
pushing us under with water choke 
and splutter up my nose, gasping for air.
 
Below strands of weak light,
struggling feet, pale as fish thrashing,
arms separate from our bodies, 
try to ward off onslaught of laughter. 
 
When the kid drowned, we weren't in the water,
but on the grey sand beach adorned with floral
towels, beach umbrellas, packed hampers
and sweating pitchers of iced Kool-Ade.
 
"He caught a bad cramp," the mothers said, 
"a few feet from the shore, and the drop
took him." He didn't listen when they told him
to wait just a few minutes more.
 
Divers recovered his body and zipped him in
a black bag. Rain dampened the beach.
Parents hustled us shivering to waiting cars, 
our lips blue, the lake in our skin and hair.