miniature winter

i try to pull the winter 
out of my face but none of it leaves.
we get coffee in our hometown
& everything is the same. the word 
"decades" has shoulders to it. 
there is a storm coming
& i refuse to hear about it.
i grab a handful of snow outside
& let it melt in my hands. you keep
your hands in your pockets. 
as a child i used to take a plate
& fill it with snow. something bright
to eat. fork & spoon. the dead coming
& dining with me. their affinity for the cold. 
were you there too? i decide not 
to ask you. i forget the memories you were there for
& the ones that you weren't. to be
siblings is to be moons with 
interlocking orbits. sometimes 
we have the same name. 
sometimes i want to shake you 
& say, "if we don't run there will
be no where to run to." you send me
in the night, pictures of the miniatures
you paint. i have always admired
your ability to shrink the world.
i have the opposite problem. i find myself
in a world of giants. i consider what
it would take to push the season forward.
i just need a crocus. i just need
that garden in brooklyn we visited
when you were trying to show
how much you loved me. 
next time it is summer we can try
to stop the season up. tie it down.
no more cold. no more hungry 
afternoons. we are not children anymore.
when i wake up in the middle of the night
i do not wake you too. moon light,
our own faces, in the window.
i will get the firing going & you can 
come over & we can close our eyes. stand
right in front of the stove & pretend
the sun is beating down on us 
in the dead grass at the public pool.