Chlora's Snowman
© 2004 Ginger Henry Geyer
glazed porcelain with gold
29" x 20" x 19" (snowman is in 2 parts, with separate halo & flag)
Adaptation on halo of Fra Angelico's Christ in Glory Among Angels & Saints, from the San Domenico Altarpiece, Fiesole, c. 1428-30
Chlora’s favorite art supply
had fallen overnight, thick and
white as a miracle.
It was also fleeting, so she hurried
to memoralize it. She bundled up and
struggled with her stupid rubber boots.
One of the straps broke, then another.
She ran outside anyway.
Like a ritual, she solemnly laid down
and made a couple of snow angels
so all those deprived kids down south
could see what love can do. If they would
just pray harder they might get their
own snow and quit complaining.
Chlora rolled and patted the thick white stuff
into a big ball and pushed it all over the yard,
collecting grass and dirt, aimed toward
the mailbox. The snowball creaked and
groaned like the creation of the world,
and it grew until it refused to budge an inch.
The second snowball was impossibly heavy
and she realized this was not a do-it-yourself project,
even though her Dad had made a reclining snow
woman all by himself last year. She would have to
wait for help to give the snowman more balls.
With two mittenfuls of snow, Chlora could give him
a sex change, but she wasn’t so sure about boobs.
Her Dad’s naked snowlady made her Mom so mad
that she kicked it in and broke her own toe.
Chlora didn’t have the proper ingredients
for Frosty the Snowman accessories, so she took
some artistic license
and dug in her holiday decorations box
where she found good substitutes—wax lips
from last Halloween, an Italian scarf that looked
Christmassey, some lonely halves of plastic Easter eggs,
and a Fourth of July flag.
She made a medical decision and skipped the corncob pipe—
There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell
that smoking would not contribute to melt down.
There sure was no magic hat around, so a gold paper plate
from New Year’s Eve would have to do the trick.
A picture of Jesus stuck to it might make up the difference.
She twisted Frosty's twig arms to pose just like Jesus
at his Second Coming, waving a flag
and signaling peace at the same time, like he wanted
to get elected or something.
Like Jesus, Frosty also promised to be back again someday.
Anytime now he might run off and Chlora
did not want to be the child left behind,
like her little sister was once, in that Hilton Hotel
when the elevator door shut her out.
She gave her ugly boots to Frosty, so went he went
thumping into town at least he would leave some
tracks, like Big Foot the Abdominal Snowman.
Boots would be helpful when he came back
to kick butt like the second-chance Jesus, who sure
seemed odd compared to the first one.
An old Walk-Man could prevent Frosty from
listening to such things.
A black belt might be helpful in case he
got led into places he didn’t want to go.
And if in doubt, he could start the
next cold war with a stockpile of snowballs.
It had been a long day of hard work and
Frosty showed signs of melting. Somebody
needed to fix this quick and figure out a better
type of snowman. Chlora’s savior complex was stirred up.
Maybe she could borrow a refrigerated truck,
go therefore into all nations, collecting snow people
out of front yards, and save them for science,
frozen solid like Walt Disney.
Everyone would think the rapture had snatched
them away; meanwhile Chlora could
hide out in her cool trailer and do research.
But she knew the idea was doomed.
She couldn’t create out of nothing; it’d take a
village and a lot of winters to build a better snowman.
Chlora would compromise, and just decapitate Frosty
and put his head in the freezer. Since he was already
A Man for All Seasons, he would expect this.
And she was sure that a loving God would understand
|