Today, in the safety of noon’s optimism I allowed my thoughts to return to December. Though I never felt her winter, I knew, she was colder than most.

Children built snowmen, from my window, I watched carrots that once served as noses, sinking in sleet. December’s evenings brought Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, Friends. They all came to say hello and goodbye. Some hellos were the first in years, their goodbyes, surely, the last.

And when dawn arrived, new snowmen were built. Some with twigs as arms, and others, without. Their coal eyes longing for limbs, to move freely, as humans should.

Day by day, I watched snowmen melt, drooping eyes, withering arms and silly scarves.

From my window, I wondered what it would be like, to be rooted in one spot, a mouth full of pebbles, and memories evaporating like snow