The Pine

The Pine

Mama’s homemade hot cocoa that always led to car sickness.

Our dads’ trucks loud against the silence of the Rocky Mountains.

Two 15 year olds struggling to walk through the thick snow.

Buster Boo jumping from drift to drift,

Cadie guarding you like Fort Knox.

Your Gortex gloves grabbing mine as I stumble over a dead pine.

Yours eyes soften, and I can see an entire universe with you behind them.

We will have a house in Colorado, one in Florida. 

You will teach me to ski, and I’ll teach you to cook.

Two boys- one tender like me, the other strong like you. 

Rocking chairs on a porch overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. 

The weight of the snow cracks the pines, bringing us back to 2003.

Twenty years later, and I still can’t ski.

<3 M.