Snow as particulate, as lattice netting 

whatever is in the air, I have eaten you 

when young, when my mother wasn’t looking 

but inside, grumbling over dinner. I have stood

in the dusk when you have taken on blue tones

and shaped you to the size of an apple

without stem, and bitten. They say 

there will have been soot from the wood stove 

and dirt from the fields—both carried by wind, but

I saw neither, nor tasted anything 

but you, pure as I thought you, dropping

in your leisurely way to meet me

in my tattered coat with the ratty fake fur

and boots that seeped along their sides.

Never too cold for this moment, you—this delicacy

that has become with each year, like everything,

a little more temporary.

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