First Frost

Judith McConnell Steele

How do you tell the children?

Pull out dark clothes lying deep in shuttered trunks. Thick pants, strapped at the cuf, muled sweaters, double skirts that drag the ground. Heavy boots with metal brackets, studded soles to struggle through long nights.

Tamp down your vegetables end to end in sootcellar dirt beneath the ragged loorboards. Buried where no dogs will dig, lost until you need to eat.

Wax and sharpen all the skis though sun warms your skin so rose you cannot remember white on white on endless, dirty white. Cannot see drifts racked higher than your house now lung open like a summer heart. Dig long graves, while earth gives under your bare foot. When all you want to do is lie in green soil, roll and roll. Stand up. Prepare to bury your dead saints while you still have the strength.

Tell the children.