Married in a winter storm,
white blizzard of rice,
lace, curtains, dress, bride --
and the next morning he planted birches in token --
Grandson: what do they make you think of now?
Grandfather strips off a piece of coiling bark, and under, the soft underbark:
You see that colour, boy?
That is what your grandmother's skin was,
that night,
in that hotel room,
snow everywhere outside,
naked.
- Peter Winthrop (cont. poet)