Not In Silence, But Restraint

Your jacket matched the asphalt parking
Lot and separated you from the snow.
I walked a few steps behind you, waiting,
But you never looked over your shoulder.

You steadied tea in a steel thermos,
Releasing gray translucent coils
Into a New England winter
Anxiously placing snow in your hair.

I chased that trail every morning,
Watching it dance in the air,
Suspended from its own dissolving
Rope until its vanishing demise.

I would always slip on glazed snow,
Tracking sand and salt indoors.
You were unknowingly confident -
A crow perched upon a snow fort.