Mitten
do you remember the day
we jumped from second-story windows
into heavy piles of snow
banks barely dented by our bodies
you, the favorite cousin
you didn’t want to jump
I teased you
‘Kitten Kitten I got your mitten’
you jumped just to shut me up
it was a week of so much snow
that streets were so covered
cars were white humps
schools were happily closed
on the old toboggan
we pulled pushed slid soared
flew down hill to the pond
the danger of suddenly cracked ice
Meg was downed there last year
you said it was haunted
we crept quickly past it
I said I could hear Meg calling
‘Kitten Kitten I got your mitten’
you pushed me back toward her
the snow was softer there
we sank deep into
heavy thick white foam
it rushed up our legs
held us pulled us trapped us
we bobbed like a pair of
dog heads on springs
in the back window of a car
you had to pee
I helped you pull down
your ice encrusted zipper
and saw your little red cock
the stream of yellow
dazzle dizzy
as it hit the snow
‘Be careful’ I yelled as I pulled away
‘Your turn’ you dared me
‘Or do you need a mitten to keep it warm’
so I did it too
the cold rush
around the moist warmth
that my pants had held
I made crosses
out of your yellow splotches
neither of us had enough to
write a name a note a memento
we stood a moment there
our dinks dangled in the cold
looking at them and then each other
smiling wide and wondering
it began to snow again
So much of this happened to me – I do remember winters in Cape Breton where I jumped out of a second-story window – actual it was more like a dangled out then spurred away with my feet to land on my back – inot the snow. The windows in our house weren’t large enough to really jump out of head-first.
At least once a winter Toronto gets enough snow to turn cars into snow humps but never has gotten to the point where one is walking shown the sidewalk between mounds of now so high to can’t see over them. That would never happen as snow removal favours cars & sidewalks would be made impassable. Toronto’s war isn’t on cars but on pedestrians. But I digress.
I did have a toboggan that flew down hill, there was a pond where some little girl had fallen through the ice & drowned but it wasn’t that close to where we lived. I did get stuck walking through a snow bank. I did piss in the snow more than once rather than wet my snowsuit.
The piece is one of several in which I allow early age same-sex attraction happen with innocence. I’ve read enough hetero poetry about this sort experience – most of the queer stuff involves trauma not innocence. Before I knew what it was I need feel a real curiosity about boys at an early age – I did a bit of peeking but that was all. When I found a name for it replaced innocence with shame. I love the last line ‘it began to snow again.’
Also, I hate to break it to you, but there was no cousin. Our family had no relatives in Cape Breton.
