It's snowing;
I can see it
through
the ward window,
drifting slow
and filling
the branches
of the trees,
and out there
in the fields about.
It looks surreal,
like it is being painted
as I watch.
Glad we're in here,
not out there in it,
Yiska says,
moving next to me
at the window.
I can smell her perfume
or is it soap?
It has a kind
of fascination,
I say,
trying to imagine soldiers
on the Russian Front
knee deep
in to snow,
fingers freezing
to rifles,
feet so cold
they freeze off.
She says nothing;
looks at the fall of snow.
You have imagination,
I’ll give you that,
she says after a few minutes.
Some days I want
to just lie there
and become numb
in snow.
I read some place
soldiers froze
where they stood
like statues,
dead and white,
I add, looking at her
beside me, her hair
unbrushed, her pale
blue nightgown
hanging loose,
no belts or ties
allowed( suicides
always possible),
her eyes staring
outward.
If I could get out
of this locked ward,
I’d be out there,
looking for a place
to just lie, and go
to sleep, she says.
I imagine us both
laying there out
in the falling snow,
cold, freezing
waiting to go.
A BOY AND GIRL IN A HOSPITAL IN WINTER 1971.