Benjamin Rosenbush

Waving Back Some Kind of Amen

We used to sled down a hill of fresh snow
on my dad’s back and legs as he
became our sleigh, stretching out each arm
like a strange, low-gliding plane,
wings slicing the snow to steer round the knolls.
The hard-packed hill went on for miles
and years, becoming old by the end,
as we passed by every house we ever lived in,
past birthdays, baseball games, and talks in the sauna,
sledding headlong into the snowdrift of words
that were his sermons, punching them up
like a blizzard of wisdom falling over us,
melting truths on our chins. We sled down
and down until we rest in the grass
beyond winter. He stands to walk across the surface
of a last lake, waving to us through a bright thaw,
we waving back some kind of amen.