Petals on Snow by Helena Mitchell
Photographs by the author
24 pp., 2000
ROSE
Rose, unfold crimson.
Sweet fragrance comes like
plum juice.
Petals fall to snow.
BUBIE
We called my grandmother
Bubie.
After she died
My father took me to the zoo.
The animals
looked at me
behind bars,
howling with the wind.
My Dad held me high
in the biting air.
I threw popcorn into cages,
giggling.
I was five
and felt pretty
in my new wool coat,
purple leggings
hooked around my feet.
Inside my shoes itched
like tiny hairs of a
caterpillar
crawling.
There was a matching hat, too
with a big brim
and a sash
that tied under my chin so
tightly
that the winter wind
settled there
and grooved a crimson niche
that was sweet and painful to
touch
because it was private and
mine.
I waddled under the weight of
the wool.
Was it my cheeks
which made the animals
brighten
under oatmeal-slate skies?
The polar bears
fat and fluffy
blended with the landscape
reminding me of Bubie’s
hair.
Everywhere
trees had lost their leaves.
The white ground was dotted
with maroon patches.
A scrawny squirrel darted
past me
up a barren tree.
I wondered if the animals had
come
from a place that was warm
and green.
Now they lived
on concrete slabs
behind black bars.
I wondered how all the
animals
lived in just their furs
without dying.
I thought of the animals
dying in the cold.
Were they buried beneath the
snow
like my Bubie had been?
I wanted her to see me now.
I wanted to talk to the
animals
to keep all of us warm.
I kept thinking of the cold.
A bird gave a wild laugh.