It’s the cold air that bites the insides of our lungs, in a good way. Yarny mittens dampened from still-warm fingers. Snow falling in soft, conspiratorial circles. Each flake formed once: fragile physics, immutable law. And somehow, in small hands, it all becomes a game.

A Polar Sphere of Influence

One
flirtatious flake
swipes right on thousands,
millions, billions, trillions sticky.
A piledupon crammed fascination street
summited peak of wonder, cold, frozen treat.
Altogether stuck, jaggy angular points intertwined
one on another; water made crystal, stolid acrobats.
All unique the same way, this gathering of ice mates.
Contented to linger, drifted in soft, pillowy cake layers
all before mittened hands press-form them closetight.
A ball, made to throw, play fighting, a little kid might
hurl, send it sailing over, past forts of snow bricks.
Blocks butted tight to block the everywhere-cold.
And before it seeps, drools down your neck.
A brief polar shocking, a hard, cute pain.
Before another winter ball, gentle
flies a frigid arced way
splatting your
eye.