No Line Between

I woke to new snow falling on yesterday's snow,

and from the window I couldn't tell them apart,

each flake landing on what came before,

erasing it, covering the trace,

and I stood at the glass

trying to find the line—

the exact moment

where one day ended

and the next began—

but there was no line.

Just white.

Just the particular silence

of a thing covering what it covers,

flake after flake,

each one the same,

each one erasing

what fell before.

Time doesn't show on the surface.

I know this now.

The hours that fell yesterday,

pressed down by hours from today,

buried beneath the accumulation,

invisible,

invisible

because nothing separates

one flake from the next,

one hour from the next,

one version of me

from the next.

I pressed my hand to the cold window

and felt the glass between me and the falling,

between me and the terrible,

quiet knowledge

that we are always being covered,

always being erased,

always disappearing

beneath what falls after us.

The snow keeps falling.

It covers everything the same way.