CASPER
THE FRIENDLY GHOST
The Snow-Woman
Her body's weighty, two snow-balls,
and so white she leeches red paint from the sled.
The whole yard resembles her: white getting whiter
as if it were all in her head.
Yesterday she fell in a trance from the sky.
I gave her buttons and two coal eyes.
She is an ambassador from the Old Order,
from the ice force that carved out the Kettle Moraine.
Her mineral rights are clear: she shares the past
with the stars and carries a stillness so vast it moves
like a glacier across the yard.
She asks nothing of me. I ask nothing in return.
I am genetically closer to mushrooms
than to her. Her roots are elsewhere, like the roots
of the daughter I will never bear,
and so things settle between us.
Her body's weighty, two snow-balls,
and so white she leeches red paint from the sled.
The whole yard resembles her: white getting whiter
as if it were all in her head.
Yesterday she fell in a trance from the sky.
I gave her buttons and two coal eyes.
She is an ambassador from the Old Order,
from the ice force that carved out the Kettle Moraine.
Her mineral rights are clear: she shares the past
with the stars and carries a stillness so vast it moves
like a glacier across the yard.
She asks nothing of me. I ask nothing in return.
I am genetically closer to mushrooms
than to her. Her roots are elsewhere, like the roots
of the daughter I will never bear,
and so things settle between us.