Snow tumbles from the sky 
spilling out of heavy, layered clouds. 
I yearn to hear it crunch beneath my boots, 
feel it compress between my hands 
as my daughter and I roll it into lopsided snowmen. 

I need my red gloves. 

The velvety ones with the gray stripe. 
I open the box of winter things, 
pore over the half-dozen lesser pairs, 
dump the contents. 
Paw through the heap. 
A flash of red.

Only one.

I toss the mound again like
piles of leaves on a windy autumn day.
I only see shades of grey wool that mirror the sky.
It’s really not here.
Not in this new place,
this new home.

It can’t be lost.

I had it on our last trip to the pass the previous winter—
when we were still a family,
when I was holding on to the last pages of
a story that I no longer starred in.

“I want you gone,” he’d said. “Now.”

Right, of course.

It was my idea after all.
I’d lingered, 
weeks, months even, past my expiration date
like a full carton of soured milk
you felt bad about throwing away.

I heaved mismatched items into hastily taped boxes.
Not the organized retreat I had planned.
Like buckets overflowing, spills left behind.

A shoe.
A glove. 
A dream.

I imagine a speck of red 
under the bed we’d shared for nine years
 with
its fresh bedding, 
surrounded by newly purchased nightstands.
The bed that witnessed our breakfast engagement,
our daughter’s conception.
our money woes.
To us each clinging to its distant edges.
To my sleeping alone.
Then leaving it behind.

It wasn’t the same bed, 
too much had changed around it.
But under it?
Had he gotten that far?
Or was there still some small piece of me 
lying there, 
haunting him?