John Tustin

When I was a little boy there was a snowstorm

And it lasted for days.

When it was over the snow was piled so high

That I was trapped on my dead end street

With my brothers and my parents

And the neighbors.

All I can remember is the mountain of snow the snowplows

Placed right on my streetcorner

And that the neighborhood kids and my brother and I

Had some snowball fights.

The one memory I have, a moment indelible in my mind,

Is looking out the window at all the snow.

The blinding white of it, the totality of it.

I looked out wanting to be in it

And I looked out happy I was safe and warm

With the radiator hissing as I stood there in my jammies

Thinking about whether to go outside for a while

Or find some paper and a pencil and draw –

Knowing I could come back in the moment I was cold

Or something went awry.

All that snow and machinery of humanity at a standstill

While Paul Asaparti and Paul Matto pummeled the Fox twins with snowballs

As my brother Robert made them more and more to throw.

I think that maybe the blizzard of ‘78

Was the last time that I felt really safe.

I know I haven’t felt safe since

For more than a day,

If that.