He came to the window beside me
rubbing his tough hands on a red rag.
“That’s a neat pattern of shadows
on the snow,” I said, feeling poetic:
“long parallel blue lines.”
He stood, thoughtful, wary, perhaps
of connecting to poetry; he had
his status as a mechanic to uphold.
He had just changed
the rear wheel bearing
on my aging perfect car.
“We had an amazing thing happen
right in that field a few weeks ago:
thousands of snowballs all sizes,
rolled by the wind as if children
had played all night without
leaving a single trace, not a footprint.
It was magical.”
He sighed, retreated to the side
of my aging perfect car.
