She was late, again. She thought it was obnoxious, I thought it was cute. She made excuses, these little stories to why she was late, markups on her face, and the zipper on her jacket, each and every time some little splotch on the big picture. She was glowing, masking it with some sort of fac?ade, making a scratch on a wall of glass; every time I saw her, my heart started pulsing, envious, jealous, filled with regret that I wasn’t enough.

When she stepped in the snow it melted; with the grey clouds rolling in like a wave, snow pitter-pattering onto the ground like droplets of rain, frozen and encased in the cold winter air, just the look of her face turned every frozen feature around her to the oceanic coast. Her eyes were rich sea-green, reflecting something even the seas in my dreams couldn’t match, green crystals locked in opaque spheres that were the bodyguards to her soul.

Then her beautiful black hair hung like fine cloth over her fragile shoulders, protected by the yarn and sews of a knit purple sweater, encasing her smooth skin and protecting her from battering winter air. The palms of her hands were tucked away under her arms, her eyes a glint of reflected coral, her nose perfectly rounded just above her perfect teeth, each little one so fine and grained, smoother than Chinese silk, whiter than the snow on the mountains surrounding the city.

She danced elegantly with the softest footsteps; she seemed to glide over the snow- covered tracks that wetted the bottom of her chocolate boots, grounded in the iced powder nearly a foot deep on the sidewalk. When she saw me, the glassy reflection of the warm fountain arcing like a transparent rainbow, she smiled, her pearled jewels shining with the white-grey clouds rolling in, whiter than the snow that fell, her beauty more symmetrical than the shape of a snowflake.

Her hug was like a chain, like a boy-scout knot around me and she buried her face into my neck, shutting her eyes and giggling like a schoolgirl. I could feel the warmth of her air around me, her knit sweater a shield from the snow, and I leaned into her and we kissed, our lips locked and I led my arm down her back, stroking her smooth skin with the tips of my finger and she held my neck tight with her tiny hands; we stood in the light of the clouds and the falling snow, together alone in the grace of the twinkling snowfall.