Winter's Breath

on a morning wrapped in snow  

the street swallowed my brother whole  

a girl behind the wheel  

her hands trembling like leaves in frost  

did not see him crossing  

her scream collided with metal  

and he flew—  

an unplanned defiance of gravity  

thirty feet of silence between heartbeats  

his body met the soft, cold ground  

snow cradled him like a mother  

breaking his fall with gentle whispers  

he skidded into stillness  

rose to his feet as though  

the world had not just split open  

beneath him  

she was the one who cracked  

folded into a child beneath the shock  

the pavement left no mark on him  

but she wore the weight of the moment  

like a scar inside her chest  

my brother held his bruises quietly  

while hers would not stop bleeding  

on a road slick with guilt and snow