Croissant

by Les

Winter
on the
east coast.
Abhorring cold,
my father had bought
too many jars of lotion. How we
had slathered it on, my mother, sister
and I, coconut-flavored unguent soothing
dry, cracked surfaces. Under coat, sweater,
thermals, our limbs donned a second skin of body
butter. I imagined it was how bread felt, emerging
from the oven. We were always longing for layers:
sliding under blanket, covered by comforter, nightly
ceremony of creatures that burrow. In the morning
butter would melt on croissant & I would think
of soft things that curl defensively
around themselves: hibernating
marsupials, fetuses, newborn
animals in the center of
the nest, growing
a core of summer
that would last
all their
lives
long.