“Pattress!” calls the boy next door,
breaking the winter quiet.
The brown dog leaps off the back steps
and disappears into the snow,
and the boy follows her out of the house.
Pattress appears
and disappears in the snow
again and again.
“Ruh! Ruh!” she calls, begging to play.
The boy packs a snowball and pitches it
way to the back of his yard.
Pattress chases it,
sniffs around where it should be,
then looks at the boy. She waits.
He throws another snowball
and another and another.
Her bark—insistent, joyful—
echoes off the surrounding woods.
She does her leap dance toward the long bump that divides our yards.
When the snow melts, I’ll find a fence under there.
The boy throws another snowball,
and—whup!—
it hits the empty turkey coop,
making it rattle.
He raises his arms,
either like “I’m sorry” or “Sock it to me.”
I accept the challenge
and throw a handful of snow his way.
It doesn’t even reach the fence,
and he bends over, laughing . . .
At me? This time,
I pack a snowball tight as ice,
wind up,
and pitch.
It explodes against a tree, spraying
the boy and his dog.
Soon we’re having a snowball fight,
and we step closer and closer to the fence-bump
in the middle, laughing.
Pattress watches the snowballs sail past her,
biting and barking and leaping.
And just when I reach the fence,
ready to deliver the final blow,
Papa calls, “Mimi!”
his voice cutting through the laughter, slicing the mood.
“’Bye,” I say, and hold up my hand
empty of snowballs but coated in snow.
“’Bye,” says the boy.
I go inside
and take off my boots
and shake the snow off my clothes.
When I look out the door,
Pattress and the boy are still standing by the bump.