With the first snowfall comes remembering—I am a child, window
-ledge high. My mother is a maelstrom as we watch

our gravel driveway whiten. All I wanted back then
was such blankness, the covering of everything—every limb, bed,

and lie—with the illusion of being pristine. Erase the tracks
to let us break different paths come morning.

Come morning, I’ll be silent as drift, snow filling
my footsteps. The further I go into this forest, the younger

she becomes, her hair runs in brown cascades
speckled with white fluffs. I think dandelion, I think fawn

grown into doe. I am all antlers. She scatters into thousands
of flakes that taste of ash, forest as endless as my need for her,

like a bullet between breaths, lost in the rapture of flight
before flesh ruptures. Marvel at how permeable the membranes

between her and I are. To this day, I can’t tell where
her scream stopped and my howl began. It’s how we’ve been taught

to love a thing—hold it like it’s a feral animal
thrashing. Soothe it even as we do the suffocating.

—Zack Medlin and Caitlin Scarano

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