{"id":231,"date":"2010-03-12T00:04:28","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T04:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/?p=231"},"modified":"2010-03-12T00:05:39","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T04:05:39","slug":"cathy-smith-bowers-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/?p=231","title":{"rendered":"Snow &#8211; Cathy Smith Bowers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><object width=\"480\" height=\"385\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/-0SHHEZaAO4&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;rel=0\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/-0SHHEZaAO4&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;rel=0\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"480\" height=\"385\"><\/embed><\/object><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It was the only act of intimacy<br \/>\nI ever witnessed between them&#8211; that joke<br \/>\nmy father told her, his opening<br \/>\nline&#8230;I hope it snows so deep&#8230;and then<br \/>\nhow, for the punch, he reached out<br \/>\nand pulled her to him, to whisper words<br \/>\nthat sent her red and slapping<br \/>\nat his khaki shirt and then her hand<br \/>\nlifting to his chin to remove<br \/>\nthe little ghosts of cotton<br \/>\nthat fluttered there. Our teachers<br \/>\nhad sent us home from school calling<br \/>\nSee you Monday that Thursday in December<br \/>\nas we ran crazed into the schoolyard<br \/>\nand to our separate houses<br \/>\nto hold vigil for that white coming,<br \/>\nthat promise we wanted so badly to believe<br \/>\nwe could feel, already in the graying<br \/>\nsky, its soft descent. All evening<br \/>\nthe heater roared its warmth<br \/>\ninto the room as we talked<br \/>\nof snow-cream so cold it hurt<br \/>\nyour head, the fine spin a hubcap gives<br \/>\ndown a hill of white. But by the close<br \/>\nof second shift, all that had shown<br \/>\nwas a stray, barking beneath<br \/>\nthe streetlight, our father in from the mill,<br \/>\nblowing the night from his hands<br \/>\nand telling that joke, his mouth burrowing<br \/>\ninto the smell of our mother&#8217;s hair,<br \/>\nand somewhere, breaking dim above the smokestacks,<br \/>\na few odd stars no one would admit to seeing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio","category-dim-above-the-smokestacks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions\/233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}