The snow came overnight

The snow came overnight

and made the dumpsters beautiful.

The whole alley behind my building—

the rust, the dents, the years—

all of it buried under white.

Clean for the first time

I could remember.

I stood at the window

and let myself believe it.

That broken things could reset.

That you could be made new

just by being covered.

By afternoon it melted.

The edges first,

the metal showing through,

the dumpsters emerging

like something being exhumed,

like something being found out.

The rust came back exactly as it was.

The dents.

The permanent reek.

The years.

Of course it did.

There's a cruelty in snow—

in showing you what beauty looks like

and then taking it away,

leaving you with the same broken thing

and the memory of it being different.

I watched the last white patch

drip into nothing.

Watched the city become

itself again.