realcold

he was just a child, i know this,
though do not know his exact age.

and he and his friend who lived caddie corner from me, they came up the road and they are shivering, pushing their bikes up the mild incline of the street, pushing because they are too cold to ride;
their blue jean pants frozen solid hanging on the boy's legs like hard tubes (i swear i have never seen anything like this) and the friend is crying because he is in so much pain from the cold and

his nose is snotty and nostrils crusty, irritated and his lips dry and cracked red beyond relief and

before they get within ear shot the friend tails off through the woods (the back way home)

the other fellow for whom's age i cannot recall (but know is a child) continues. i yell are you okay and he says yes and i say what happened and he said they went wading through the creek on the other side of the neighborhood and i say why?
it's 20 degrees and he says he doesn't know why they just did and i say oh. I can see his eyes clearly now as he i cuts through the front yard to the porch where I, despite the chill stand smoking, and In his eyes i see shame for what he has done

and even more so i see a sparkling that is alive because in the act of shivering he has allowed the cold to penetrate him and take over his body; he knows the feeling of frozen and i see his face and it is stunned with nothing to say.

I wonder about baptisms in winter and then I picture the friend, how in a matter of minutes he will be crying in his mommy's arms and she will gently wipe his snotty nose and strip him down naked and wrap him in a warmtoweland tuck him in his bed
while the other kid, who has just dropped his bike at the steps and is opening the door in minutes will be in the laundry room of the house (where I stand on the porch smoking) and will struggle with the zipper on his pants, his hands numb, and will pull his pants off and leave them at his feet there in the laundry room and for a moment he will stand shivering in his underwear alone.