Elements Chapter 2

Storm

Blizzard

In Brooklyn, the snow doesn't fall so much as negotiate its descent,
bartering with gravity, wind, and the city's upward thrust.
It accumulates like unspoken words between generations,
a white weight on the shoulders of brownstones and memory.

My father, a man who wore his blackness like a uniform,
once told me that snow made everyone equal, at least for a day.
I watch from the window as it transforms the neighborhood,
obscuring the lines between sidewalk and street,
between the houses of those who shovel their own walks
and those who pay others to do it.