One Sunday noon at 436
(Gram's house—the entire family
referred to their houses

by street number—),
the first big snow was falling.
We sat around the table

in an igloo: the dining room
darkened and hushed,
windows a swollen glow.

After lunch, the cousins
split up to play. Sam and I
roamed the neighborhood,

feral kids invisible
behind the schoolyard's
white chenille chain link.

We looted the small covered
bridge of the mailbox with great care,
disturbing no snow.

Only Sam and I know where
the Weekly Readers for the week
of February 16th, 1958, reside.

If you find, in a surprising place,
a note left by kids sixty years ago,
you'll understand why

the kids’ gesture moves me.
Behind it is an impulse
to touch a stranger.