Taking the Dogs Out One Night After a Snowstorm

The dogs a brown blur against blinding
white barely visible ridges and striations

Patterns of falling and wind-riddance
the shapeless back yard a single unique

print of the storm’s finger but nothing
weighing in as evidence more so

than my daughter’s bright red jacket
so lively against this erasure

like my love for that life and
everything that came before it

and the blue of the twilight
and the black of what follows