About February (Updated)

About February
- AK

You sled headfirst
on a mattress, the experts say.
Who am I to not listen? I thought,
grabbing the rope of this sled,
if you can call it that, at the top
of the hill. The snow ahead
was trackless, waiting for something it had never seen,
could never have expected.
The experts started the ride,
and gaining speed, I looked back
to see how the snow parted.

I dragged the sled up the hill,
learning why a mattress
isn't used more often, and then,
I stopped. I dropped the rope
and fell backwards
making my first snow angel in years.

It was his birthday today, and as I sit here now
in wet pants,
hot chocolate in my cup,
I realize that I just did all the things that I had told him
February was all about.

Jar of Fireflies

Jar of Fireflies
- AK

A jar of fireflies rests on the mantle
the morning after. Jamie and little Bill
caught them in the park, rubberbanding
a pin-pricked sheet of paper as a roof
on one of our pickling jars, ripped leaves
and grass as furniture, taking part
of their home into ours. That half-dozen
insects illuminated our living room, a glow
warmer than any fire we could have made.
I can only hope that we had a family,
a pair of lovers, because a jar of fireflies
lasts only one night.