Standing in the box of your kitchen, mother, you
have no face, only the scent of butter tarts
and a flour-white arm which opens the screen door
into the winter storm that swarms round a lamp,
and I’m amazed as it lights up the snow into the
shape of a mouth, eyes, wild strands of hair.
And I am scared here, mother, like other men,
and I am only learning to walk and you
lunge to catch me, your face hard
with snow, as if anything falling might represent
what we know we miss though we try to preserve.