To Konner

In the dark of Colorado, wrapped up in our parents’ coats and scarves and blankets, you had told me I would die—all of us together in the cold and up the mountains that I could not reconcile with my young knowledge of the plains. I was afraid.

I wonder if you now look much the same as Pappa did: not-white skin stretched over bones grown far too thin with little food he couldn’t stomach at the end, and I wonder if you still have your red hair. But you’re still tall.

We are dying, and you will be the first.