I didn’t think it could snow in Texas,
but in 2 flat unexciting minutes
the state was buried. A modern Atlantis
that no one could swim out of. Maybe trek,
maybe climb, but not swim—
This is ice, we’re talking about,
the enemy of motion, which is to say the enemy
of humans, which is to say the best friend of
everything else. A couple states away,
I’m digging my toes into soft
mud and humming imaginary
songs, drinking lemonade to make it
through the summer heat and I,
like everyone else who isn’t buried in
Texas, am invincible—Just like my
mother, my father, my sisters and brother, all people
who can’t die. This I can prove
with our full crock pot—filled to the
brim with ‘everything else,’ even
people, even pieces of Texas; that’s an average
immortal dinner for us. I sit in my kitchen every morning
drinking tea with my
favorite sister, and every other morning, light
strikes the waxed-down kitchen table and spirals
across the room, bleaching blue
rugs white. This phenomenon is what makes
us unkillable, and what makes white Texas happy is the
memory of green Texas—which is enough for them,
which is enough for me. This morning, I didn’t think it would
snow in Texas, but now I’m grown: today will be
the last time my mother touches my hair.