Here is the winning entry in our 6th annual poetry contest.
WINTER OF CONTENT
Mary Barnard
An Auschwitz thin child,
skin a redhead’s pale
most arms shoved against mine a healthy brown
next to weak-tea freckles and see-through hair.
My skin burned
through lotion when anyone
remembered to put
it on. After the redness, blisters,
fire, my skin
back to pale, milkier than ever.
Geesch,, get some sun strangers called
out,
then laughed
about how white my legs, so
I took to long
skirts, long pants, knee socks or tights.
The six months of
Wisconsin winter neutralized
the spectrum of
skin shades, the low sun stripped
of potent
Coppertone tan don’t burn rays.
I learned to love
winter, when most of me
covered by
bundles of clothing. My cheeks,
just like everyone
else’s, reddened by cold.
Waking up to
first snowfall, the rush
to the closet, a
jumble of hooded snowsuits,
buckled boots,
hats, mittens on a string.
The fingers got
cold first, no matter how dense
the wool, then
the toes, buried under layers
of sock, shoe, rubber
boot with furry cuff.
That first step
into virgin snow, falling into it,
licking it,
rolling it into tight balls to stack
behind the wall
of a mighty snow fort.
We took turns on
sled, toboggan, flying saucer,
the big ones
helping little ones with the ropes
to get us all
back up the hill to go down all over again.
Even snowball
fights, generally harmless,
slinging white
spheres, that lucky
smatter on a
cushioned back,
the tromped down whiteness
that made every
yard a playground.
The nuns told us
in heaven we could have
whatever we want
and I prayed, good I want
a tan. But I want something else now, snowfall,
the kind that
makes for equal footing.
