First Snow

Stefanie Kirby

That evening stars
fell as snow

cocooned by chirping
branches and the leaf I’d mistook
earlier for a little brown bird

with breaths like the feathered flight
of gathering cumulus at dark, marking

the last time you’d be wreathed
in heartbeat and blood.

I radiated warmth as a second skin
of flakes melted into a thin
sweat for your small soul.

By morning, flurried drifts
rose barren

arctic,
still.