![Black and white photo of a building in winter with a tree in the foreground and the ground is covered in snow.](/sites/writinguniversity.org/files/styles/no_crop__1024w/public/2021-08/Anna%20Zalevskaya%20%E2%80%93%E2%80%93Winter%27s%20Tale.jpg?itok=Qq13VZoz)
The day was bitter cold
As I walked home
From school
To get my mittens that I
Forgot because my
Teacher made me
Go and get them
The earth’s ice carapace
Cracked beneath
My feet
And my fingers froze
Brittle as twigs
But the lesson that I learned
Came later––in loving
You––how forgetting
To cover up against
The cold
. . . can hurt.