Snow Woman

In childhood’s first flurry,
we never thought to build a woman.
Three small sisters

in woolen gloves, patting
together the perfectly
sexless, three-part man.

Stiff twig arms, the frozen smile.
Even Father’s hat stolen from the shelf
did not make him ours.

Today in first snow
we are grown-up sisters
on our way to build a woman.

The oldest, stooped from sudden weight,
carries a daughter on her back.
The youngest carries hers in her belly.

What falls from the sky
is white and pure.
We catch it on our tongues.

If we could, we would build her whole.
Start at the head—pristine
features, a thoughtful nod.

But it can’t be done. Our woman
requires a sturdy base.
Earth is the place to begin.

We pack the snow between
our hands, lower it to the ground,
gently roll it round.

Her body grows in our hands.
And as we roll, earth attaches itself--
twigs, branches, leaves.

We struggle, lift her upright in the snow,
kneel to carve the first space.
Her thighs spread wide,

we crawl on all fours
through the place where we began.
We pad more snow: the hills

of her buttocks. Too small a waist
and she would crumble,
we build her rounded there.

Together our hands do the work.
The breasts we build are Mother’s breasts.
Shoulders broad, backs strong.

And now the neck, the stem we pray
will hold. Tomorrow she will be gone,
yet we fashion her as if

she were forever. Grandmother’s
mouth, full lips and laughing.
The nose of our dead sister.

And for her eyes, an aunt
we never knew except in stories.
They say one eye was brown,

fixed straight ahead or slightly down.
The other was blue with a mind of its own,
gazing a bit toward heaven.