leaving

She walked over to the thermostat again.
“It’s hot in here,” she said to him again,
but the temperature still read a cool 68 degrees.
He started complaining to her about something,
like he did before, like he’d do again.
She walked into the kitchen and started
to splash some cold water on her face.

“Could you get a can of sardines while
you’re in there?”, he said to her.
Without saying a word, she walked to the
front door, picked her denim jacket off
the brass coat rack, grabbed the keys
hanging from the hook, and walked out the door.

She walked a mile and a half in the cold
before getting to the empty field.
Late November brought the first snow,
and bits of ice clung to the ground
in the early December night. She walked
out into the grass and leaves, and
listened to them crack as she moved.
The water she splashed onto her face
before was now frozen. Her ears,
her nose -- the skin on her hands and
cheeks -- were turning red, then purple.
The tops of her legs hurt from the cold.

She walked to the center of the field.
She sat down in the dirt. She smiled.
She laughed. She watched the moisture
from her breath freeze as soon as it left her
lips. She hurt from the cold. And she laughed.

Copyright Janet Kuypers.
All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.