Blue Dents
after Arna Bontemps
Winter has a kink for reclaiming its own
in January, February too, tidy deaths,
snow covering its tracks,
our lives, Johnny’s body
wheeled out under clear plastic
hours after he turned 81
mid-blizzard, after we found him
in his holler cabin, buried
mostly in blankets, his cheeks veined
by a formula for asphyxiation, an exit
quiet as the snow piling around us
when I checked his neck for a pulse,
his skin crackled like the frosted pane
above his bed. I didn’t recoil,
but left a blue dent.