At Fourth and Union

Two girls play trust fall on Union Street by the Seven-Eleven, the snow already halfway up their calves. You watch them at the stop light through the car window. Your mother was late picking you up; she could not have anticipated the weather. The office in which you waited looked out on falling snow, snow that keeps secrets, snow that silences the city. The girls’ laughter gets caught in the air. You let them go as the car drives away, you tell yourself the pain in your chest is from another life, a life in which you are old and waiting to be reborn. The stars behind the clouds blink, big as cow’s eyes.