Jill Osier

You can't even buy a soda. You can only see these things, see a mother steer her son to the car, his head cocked licking his ice cream. Earlier, driving, trying to keep between two cornfields, I couldn't see myself into a map, couldn't be anywhere in it, though I knew all the patient states between us. Pigeons sit high on a mill's peaked roof, spaced even as beads. They can stand that close to each other, but looking at them you wouldn't know it. Would you.

In case you sit across from the meteorologist tonight, and in case the dim light over the booth in the bar still shines almost planetary on your large, smooth, winter-softened forehead, in case all of the day—its woods and play, its fire— has stayed on your beard, and will stay through the slight drift of mouth, the slackening of even your heart's muscle— . . . well. I am filled with snow. There's nothing to do now but wait.

When the Amish girl gets off the bus she walks over and stomps her small black boot into a drift in front of McDonald's. She is maybe new to winter this far north and wants to know its depth. Its give. Oh, be careful. It already has you by the night of your dress, violet-black with white-dotted print.