Winter Weather Advisory

Outside, the trees are plain and silent as bottle brushes. They could scrub something clean, get at the tight corners where grime likes to hide, if only they were tipped over, spun like street sweepers. Or turned again upright, set going on the air.

This kind of cold distances. In ’49, a Nebraska driver named Hop found his school bus buried during a historic blizzard. Those days, he says, they dug tunnels to find each other after the storm.

An old crush is on vacation in Costa Rica; in the photos he posts, the streets are full of women in handkerchief skirts and bright yellow scarves. Everywhere skin and Coke bottles, striped awnings and sandaled feet. I look at these photos while wrapped in a brown afghan, my coat thickening like the neighborhood squirrels. Cold, land-locked gringa, in my dream I try to salsa dance in those crowded streets.

Last week, one of our squirrels was struck dead in the too quiet street in front of our house. Another squirrel tugged with his cupped hands at the dead squirrel’s shoulders. Come, he said, let’s run to our nest and drink beers. Later in the day a neighbor used his snow shovel to scoop up the body, maybe so the others would give up hope.

Farmer’s Almanac calls for an early spring, the senior cashier repeats to his customers. Weeks of single-digit wind chills sting worse than ever after that. The high-heeled, lip-sticked forecast is a daily disappointment. This is why we’ll wear short sleeves too soon, why we’ll sunbathe in 50 degrees. We want to believe winter will end, want to pack away parkas and snow shovels. For now, for today, we tunnel through, look for ways to find each other in the drifts.