Every time the old rabbit falls
against the side of his cage, I jump
and clutch my mother's wool
blanket against my face.
Biting into it, I force the red and green
fibers to fill the holes
between my teeth. The dinner cloud
of bacon smoke coats my lungs and obscures
the taste of my creamed corn soup.

I am continually distracted
by the sound of my father talking
or yelling at someone else,
and just as the cable goes out I hear my brother,
accompanied by the white noise, argue
that it's impossible to suffocate under the snow.

The snow that is falling noiseless
onto all of the other snow. Each
flake, with its tiny force, pushes down
on its siblings, who push down on our roof,
and trap us in a house where there aren't enough
spaces in between to let me breathe.