Like Bears

Like Bears
By Amber Morrell


Don’t go to Boston, it’s too cold there.
The wooden roofs meet at a point
a triangle above two metal grates
aiming at white overcast that sometimes mists.

A little boy cries—
the mild autism getting the better of him—
when I tell him I’m leaving to my mountain.
Slowly he’s getting over both.

It’s so warm in the valley and he’s
never known snow like I have here,
but I never knew it either until
you went to Boston and I felt the frost.

The frost clings like a ghost, to my
bootstraps and the soles of my twelve-dollar
‘poor people worker shoes’ from Wal-Mart,
so affectionately deemed by my mother.

Even if they’re not dead we talk about old friends
like they’re six feet under,
discussions we never had, secrets we never shared,
contemplating advice they’d give us if they were still here.

A little girl cries—me this time,
the smallness of a nanoparticle getting the better of me—
when you tell me your accomplishing your dreams.
I was getting over both, but my mental shield is now defunct.

So don’t go to Boston, it’s too cold there.
You’ll feel the chill of the slush turning your toes blue,
grasp at the old feelings we never talk about like they’re dead—
I retort: it’s hibernation.