In Your White Dress

I am certain about your white dress

on that day you were dancing.

Fresh snow lay upon the earth.

You told me that someone good is born

every time it snows.

Then I gave you a stalk of wheat

from your dead flower arrangement,

which is so much prettier than it sounds

and I danced with you.

We were young and loopy and in love.

“Sheep,” you whispered as I swayed near,

“I want to raise sheep—lambs white and perfect

as new snow.”

You told me we could name each one.

“Blinky,” I suggested for the first.

And you shed your white dress,

you shed your white dress

and someone good was born.

--Mitchell Hegman