By then, the blizzard was strong enough
that we couldn’t see past the chair in front of us—
all was white oblivion. And though I knew
the world, though obscured, was still there,
part of me trusted the illusion.
It reminded me of when we were kids
and at slumber parties we’d play the game
“stiff as a board, light as a feather,” in which
one girl would lie in the center of a circle,
and another would tell the spooky story
of how the supine girl had died, and how, on her death,
her body was said to be “stiff as a board, light
as a feather,” and the rest of us would slip two fingers
beneath her and carry her about the room.
I knew, of course, that my 100-pound friends
were not truly feather light, but we played the game
over and over and swore it was true. There is some thrill
in sharing a myth that defies common sense.
And so today, when I say to my daughter
that we are entering a hidden realm through a veil
and she disagrees, I am shocked how disappointed
I am when she doesn’t share the game. In that instant,
the snow is just snow, the day just a day.
There is a joy here, too, in calling things as they are.
A woman. A girl. A storm. A chairlift traveling through.
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