Mothers with Coffee Talk of Carefree Youth and Recipes
Push bundled progeny outdoors without warnings or reprimands.
The first born, practice child, digs her private snow cave. It is a carefully considered structure, excavated in the hard-packed, roadside heap. She sits inside a newly muffled world and breathes out plumes of frosty air into the watery, blue grotto light. Never considers the plow heaving along on a clean-up, second pass, blades biting, sparks against asphalt, hurling boulders of snow.
No scarlet blood splashes the white. No flesh ruined or ripped. Rebirth. Emerge as a small rising goddess, carved from hoary ice. No tears or howls. Dance on the rough mountain. Then silently shivers in the hush.
—Lisa Cihlar, Brodhead, WI
