Snow by Mary Ruefle

Snow 

Every time it starts to snow, I would like to have 

sex. No matter if it is snowing lightly and unseri-

ously, or snowing very seriously, well on into the 

night, I would like to stop whatever manifestation 

of life I am engaged in and have sex, with the same 

person, who also sees the snow and heeds it, who 

might have to leave an office or meeting, or some ar-

duous physical task, or, conceivably, leave off having 

sex with another person, and go in the snow to me, 

who is already, in the snow, beginning to have sex in 

my snow-mind. Someone for whom, like me, this is 

an ultimatum, the snow sign, an ultimatum of joy, 

though as an ultimatum beyond joy as well as sor-

row. I would like to be in the classroom — for I am 

a teacher — and closing my book stand up, saying 

"It is snowing and I must go have sex, good-bye," 

and walk out of the room. And starting my car, in 

the beginning stages of snow, know that he is start-

ing his car, with the flakes falling on its windshield, 

or, if he is at home, he is looking at the snow and 

knowing I will arrive, snowy, in ten or twenty or 

thirty minutes, and, if the snow has stopped off, we, 

as humans, can make a decision, but not while it is 

still snowing, and even half-snow would be some

thing to be obeyed. I often wonder where the birds 

go in a snowstorm, for they disappear completely. 

I always think of them deep inside the bushes, and 

further along inside the trees and deep inside of the 

forests, on branches where no snow can reach, deep-

ly recessed for the time of the snow, not oblivious

to it, but intensely accepting their incapacity, and 

so enduring the snow in brave little inborn ways, 

with their feathered heads bowed down for warmth. 

Wings, the mark of a bird, are quite useless in snow. 

When I am inside having sex while it snows I want 

to be thinking about the birds too, and I want my 

love to love thinking about the birds as much as I 

do, for it is snowing and we are having sex under 

or on top of the blankets and the birds cannot be 

that far away, deep in the stillness and silence of the 

snow, their breasts still have color, their hearts are 

beating, they breathe in and out while it snows all 

around them, though thinking about the birds is not 

as fascinating as watching it snow on a cemetery, on 

graves and tombstones and the vaults of the dead, 

I love watching it snow on graves, how cold the 

snow is, even colder the stones, and the ground is 

the coldest of all, and the bones of the dead are in 

the ground, but the dead are not cold, snow or no 

snow, it means very little to them, nothing, it means 

nothing to them, but for us, watching it snow on the 

dead, watching the graveyard get covered in snow, it 

is very cold, the snow on top of the graves over the 

bones, it seems especially cold, and at the same time 

especially peaceful, it is like snow falling gently on 

sleepers, even if it falls in a hurry it seems gentle, 

because the sleepers are gentle, they are not anxious, 

they are sleeping through the snow and they will 

be sleeping beyond the snow, and although I will 

be having sex while it snows I want to remember 

the quiet, cold, gentle sleepers who cannot think of 

themselves as birds nestled in feathers, but who are 

themselves, in part, part of the snow, which is falling

with such steadfast devotion to the ground all the 

anxiety in the world seems gone, the world seems 

deep in a bed as I am deep in a bed, lost in the arms 

of my lover, yes, when it snows like this I feel the 

whole world has joined me in isolation and silence.