baltimoreblackwoman

Winter swept over the city
like a crisp white sheet
billowing as it is flung
over a waiting mattress.

I watched it from my windows:
fat white flakes descended
heavily to the ground,
Time and Space suspended
in the silence,
broken only by the occasional sound
of whirring tires
rounding the corner
outside.

The cold air seeped in
through every crack
in the house;
I drank hot coffee to keep warm.

I hugged my dog, wrapping her
under a blanket
to still her little shivers
as she lay on the couch
until, restored,
she played with her toys,
slurped water from her bowl,
devoured her dinner,
licking the bowl clean.

Like me,
she is creakily aging.

I watched the evening news.

On the other side of town,
a man shoveling his walkway
was murdered.

Just around the corner
from my grandma’s house,
another man was shot
and killed,

While the rest of the city
played in the snow,
sledding down hills,
laughing without a care,
or walked through woods
glowing
with snow-covered trees and fields,
their exhalations visible
in the frozen air.