Pixelated Snow

Pixelated Snow

When they started recycling the pixels 
Thrown as filings from the Bitcoin mining
To use for snow, children refused to go
Out and play in it. They kept their wings
Folded delicately along their spines
Like the parachutes of smoke jumpers
That didn’t open, watching their mothers
Blow fog over headlands of green tea.
Meanwhile the pixelated snow built
Against the door as if to say If you won’t
Come out and make angels out of me
You won’t come out at all. But its weight
Was only that of a sleeping dog, and was
As easily kicked aside. Of course
They had to go out into it eventually —
They had to go to school — and though
They still refused to swim angles into it,
They did shape it into snowballs,
Those loose, dusty ones that fall apart
In midair, and that make everyone laugh,
Though these children didn’t laugh.