The snow and salt on your coat
suggests that you’ve been outside
shoveling, maybe, or 
tossing snowballs for the dogs.

But in fact it’s the dogs who have
brought the snow and salt inside,
flinging it onto your coat
when they shake it away.

Your coat hangs on the back of a chair
and you haven’t been out all day.
You’ve been mostly in bed because of the 
new and unfamiliar but not
unexpected pain in your hip,
Another joint your illness
is colonizing in your body.

You can only watch the dogs
play in the snow,
young pups again,
their own bodies slowing even faster than yours.

Black dogs,
white snow,
white snow,
red counterpane,
the outside in
where you can 
be in it.