Snow Angel

by Rich Kenney

By night she pilfers latex from unattended med carts, "Mittens for nor'easters," she tells me, despite record mercury reads of one hundred plus.

She lives in pleasant confusion, with pockets full of tea bags and face wipes. Her saddlebagged walker is stuffed with lobbyway plunder, replete with Hallmarks from greeting card trays. She gives them to complete strangers, including me, her son, who she thinks is the real estate man.

Today, she hands me the home's newly framed license, and a wallet photo encaptioned, A colleen at Cambridge, my mother, snow angeling in a bean town blizzard. Says she's been trying to reach her. Asks me, "Where did she go?"

as I hand her another

pair of mittens.