Before things got difficult for my family,
I complained one Christmas morning
when I didn’t get the toy I wanted.
My mother had actually bought it for me,
but she hid it in the closet
to see how I’d react.
Later, when there were no toys,
when there wasn’t even a closet,
when my mother had died,
the snow on the ground outside
was enough.
Joshua Lew McDermott is from Idaho. His debut poetry book, Codex, was published by Hand to Mouth Books in 2019. Currently, he is living in Sierra Leone as part of his doctoral research. When he isn’t traveling, he lives in Pittsburgh.