snowmen

walking home late tonight, i passed a snowman in a yard, then another, and yet another. i wondered if they were just biding time until the stroke of midnight, when they would all pull themselves up out of snowy drifts and file out of their yards. would the ones without eyes stumble into trees and wish they were better made? and would the ones who had eyes but no buttons throw sideways glances at the one who seemed to have the shiniest? and then, after they got oriented, perhaps they would all join in a synchronized snowman dance, full of swaying and mysterious import. or perhaps it is more of a glad whirlwinding of powdered snow and uplifted branch arms. or maybe it's a headbangers ball, heads bobbing so violently that one of them rolls off now and again, and the ones with treebranch arms must go and retrieve it. at any rate, there were more of them than of me, and it seemed as if they were just waiting till they could break free.