It is a small dish—
no more than four inches in diameter,
but heavy in the hand
like a too-big coin
or a medal from some county fair.

Gray-blue enamel on copper
with a tiny winter scene:
a trio of white fir trees
their branches painted
like tiny hand-prints
stacked one
upon the other.

And just above them,
two blue snowflakes
in a sea of cool enamel,
this tiny dish of winter.

You bought it on a whim,
I’m sure,
at Wildweed in Aspen
(that Seventies store
cluttered with thick ceramic bowls
and macramé)
some January
when Christmas things
were fifty percent off.

In that annual ritual
when you brought the Christmas
boxes up from the basement,
it was there among
the old glass ornaments
wrapped in decades-old
tissue paper.

It’s too small for candy—
really just a bit of whimsy
for the marble-top
in the living room
or a bedside table.

Now it sits in my kitchen
on an old green
step-back cupboard
all year round.

I will not wrap it in tissue paper
after Christmas.
No, I will not hasten
the cycle of the years
any more than time has done.

I will let my distracted gaze
fall now and then
on that little dish,
with its two blue snowflakes.

And I will feel
with mild surprise
a brief stab of panic
deep in my chest
rise and pass like a shadow
or a memory.