To see her winter pale,
flushed warm
with a blood rush
to high cheekbones
between thin braids
of her black hair
you know she wants
to be one part snow elf
and three parts anywhere else.

Swift across dust
thick fresh snow
She is a junco
pattering beside
this ice sheet
of a lake. Before you
she smiles,
dances a little
in the crunchy dirt
path that surrounds
this lake, leads you
back towards the car.

Winter after a dry year
and the reservoir is low,
long buried trash
and stumps
break the ice surface
and on shore,
a clump of trees
and discarded t-shirts.

She is cold
in the waning afternoon
light of January.
You follow because
parks are for other seasons
and even Fishers
is one part anywhere else.