Red Mittens

Red mittens in blue gloves,

Holding hands in the snow,

Sheltering each other from the wind.

They walk like lovers,

But they do not sound like lovers,

Their angry, raised voices muffled softer

By the white world around them.

That cold sugar falls from the sky, landing in her hair,

and his hair.

He shakes like a dog to remove it, making her laugh halfheartedly.

She sounds like she is trying to laugh the pain away.

The laughter dies.

The silence is so loud now.

I love you, he says, but he is not sincere. His eyes find somewhere else,

anywhere else,

to look.

Love you too, she says. It sounds like an old, tired step

that she has danced too many times.

The snow is nice, she says.

I noticed, he tells her.

The silence is deafening now.

He makes a sound, like an angry cat, and

walks ahead,

His cold, chapped face scrunching in the wind.

Baby? she calls. He doesn't seem to hear.

She walks slower, not fast like she should,

not running after him, like she should.

Just slower. And slower.

Until he is a dot in the distance, and she is crying on the bench.

Red mittens fall to the ground, staining the snow like blood.