Onion Snow

The peeps you'd bought were chirping in the box. The groundhog lied again. You'd left to buy beer, bread and chipped ham. It was Easter Sunday. Bells from a dozen churches filled the air in this small steel town where the unemployed perpetually keep beer gardens open. You'd yelled: 'Yunz better worsh them dishes and redd up things before yunz go outside.' You said you'd had enough of eating jumbo and food stamps didn't make a difference. We didn't know you'd go by way of Altoona, that you'd go ghost on mommy and us kids. You left behind a bloodstain in your truck, the lasting memory of onion snow.