I am 7 and we live in the white, crescent lights of Minnesota —
low grounds, flat roofs, autumn palettes year round.
We rub balm between wrists, burn incense for our first
winter, remembering how we got here, remembering our first day,
my small hands pulling back scenes from a sinking pond
where our backyard courts cowslips and marigold.
Where the wind cleaves the ice. Where the ice spurs the minnow.
Where the minnows beat life from their silvery flesh
and nose circles through the ice. My mother traces their mouths,
split against the clouding glass. My mother opens her own
and the wind knocks. And the wind siphons one language for another,
the trees losing their limbs, the thiên losing its lông,
and the wind knocks. We had never seen snow before.