In the Garden

There was snow that day,
frost on the pussy willows –
the garden surprised
by the ferocity of ice.

The low stone wall bordering the grounds
bore a long, low jagged tear,
made by a burrowing animal
or neighbor’s child,

and it was through this
that I crawled, hands and knees
marveling at perfect cold,
the way the body remembers chill,

remembers what it is to feel,
remembers to keep moving,
knows somehow to crawl toward the sun.

First appeared in The Bellingham Review