Minneapolis is looking down at pavement blocks shuttered by winters: the problem of memorial. To reconcile versions of the same thing, and not leave it in a smokey sigh and the grunt of white over frozen grass.

Coordinates my grandparents know, stretched around groceries and church-steeples. Rooms steam with bodies and floors black with melt, the quick step from a bridge. My parents sit in a kitchen with soft wooden floors, near the river.

Against the cold stone ahead of me people slouch and stare, postures I have worn. Oak leaves in ice that will surely thaw, edges I touch insufficient.

In December the lights buoy me up, their unwitting duration.