Snow Day 2020

School gets out at one o’clock instead of three-thirty. The teenagers drive around the town square, cuddled up. Parents are calling to make sure they are wearing coats. Grandmas are making chili, and grandpas are snoozing. They picture their grandchildren home, safely drinking cider. The air is frigid cold; no one should be out here. Faces turn red in seconds, lips are chapped. Teenagers are laughing, inside warm vehicles, Twirling around on black ice, sliding into bushes Small animals wish they were hibernating. Their feet freezing. Icicles hang from the front of houses, glistening and blinking. Frost on top of snow makes it dazzle like rhinestones The blue white of the ground is lovely enough to make you cry. Children are arguing with their parents, wanting to be out there. Most come in within minutes, after realizing how brittle the wind is. Others have to wait until they can barely walk on frostbitten toes. Faces are pressed to windows, watching squirrels scurry. One lone black dog attempts to walk across the snow In a labored way, making slow progress Mom and Dad are cooking pizzas, speaking of their own snow days The youngest children are listening, attempting to relate The others are looking at pictures of California on their I-phones Snow Day 2020 is not so terribly different than Snow Day 1964 Snowdrifts, black ice, freezing rain on top of snow, interstates closed. Making a memory as children begin frosting snowflake sugar cookies.