Crumpled Red
First came the snow, and then everything else happened.
I watched one white heap, then another — even whiter, whiter than the first.
Through the huge windows on the first floor, listening as from the staircase of the second floor thundered:
idiot —
go away —
I’m not talking to you.
Through each falling heap: idiot — go away — I’m not talking to you.
I wanted the snow to become louder than their crumbling voices,
but the snow was falling softly.
So softly that they couldn’t hear it and captured the entire second floor with their transparent thunder.
But if thunder isn’t visible, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
The snow called me by name, called me to come down to the first floor — it knew.
Below, the giant windows were already fogging up from the oncoming morning warmth.
When they finished and came down — if they finished and came down —
the windows would be completely fogged, and the snow would no longer be seen.
I went out and left the door open. So the glass wouldn’t fog.
I shoved snow into my mouth and swallowed —
now there was ice in my throat, not just cold.
Because of the snow, the yard grew larger.
Only I grew smaller; people shrink from frost.
And also from age.
I hid behind a tall fir tree; in the yard it was as if I didn’t exist at all.
Although there was no one to look for me anyway.
Snow fell on my head, even when I didn’t shake the branches.
Even when I imagined it was summer now and the yard had shrunk again —
things piled one upon another, as they do in July, left overnight.
In winter, nothing is left outside; for winter everything is cleared away,
and the yard stretches wide.
Now the white was pierced by the bones of emptied bushes,
and I was already knee-deep in snow.
By lunchtime I would be waist-deep, if they didn’t stop shouting.
I should have been born in snow right away, not in the river — in June.
She gave birth, slammed the door shut, and left the house.
Slammed it — now the windows would surely fog, and he wouldn’t see the snow.
If he ever came down from the second floor at all.
And she saw it — squinting at the whiteness, fastening her heavy winter coat as she walked.
And she was walking toward me, knowing no other path but this one.
The fir tree dumped snow on my head, so she might not have found me.
But she did, and told me to stop eating snow. Spit it out.
She tied my long knitted scarf tighter and declared that hide-and-seek was over.
No one had won.
There was no point in going back into the fogged-up house,
so we set to building a snowman.
He turned out clumsy and fat. He didn’t turn out at all.
I dropped snow where I should have held it, and it clung to the wind.
No name suited him.
We gave him one, and at once either his arm would fall off or a button would pop away.
All that was needed was to find the true name.
A name big enough to contain the snowman, so that he could live.
He refused fifty names until we found the one that fit.
He took it and ordered us to forget it. We did.
But the name wasn’t enough. Something else was missing.
We looked into his tiny eyes on the plump snowy face
and couldn’t grasp what it was.
Legs, arms, eyes, mouth, buttons from a winter coat — all there.
Even three twigs on his head. Even ears made of pinecones.
The door of the house opened, we turned our heads.
So did the snowman — he had already seen what was being brought to him:
a dirty, limp carrot, in which still remained a crumpled red.