that day we packed the snow into a makeshift man,
no carrots or coal for his eyes or nose or mouth –
he was enough as snow for us,
and as we thawed out at your mother’s house,
our boots left a puddle by the wood-stove,
and you still wore that ugly pink toboggan,
the same color as your cheeks chapped.
but now just walking by that same spot,
the ground covered in dew and green,
no cold and not a thing about it should make me think
of you, but somehow, I still do,
like memories are ghosts that go on with us,
and I see it there clear as day but faded,
an old movie projector rolling
the past into the present.
and when I see it, I wonder if I, too, am faded,
am someone else’s ghost, an image they can’t shake,
neither happy nor sad, just past,
or am I like our makeshift man, no eyes or nose or mouth.
