MITTENS
2026 - Kathryn Nuernberger

The agent had blood running down his hands
onto the semi-automatic he was holding. It is so cold 
here right now you only have ten minutes before 
frostbite sets in. Sometimes just five. The agent 
did not have a coat on, just a hooded sweatshirt 
and his bare, bleeding hands. Maybe he bumped into 
a door jam, I thought – when it’s this cold, it feels 
like your skin shatters. Maybe his hands are just 
that chapped. I thought no one must love this man, 
no one cares for him tenderly, no one dresses him 
for the cold. He must not love himself either. 
And I thought, I will not let myself pity this man 
who would kidnap or kill if he had been given 
the order or even just the idea of an order. But I am 
weak and I did pity him all the same. I thought 
of my teenager, only a few years younger than this 
doughy-cheeked asshole and how I insisted my child 
take my snowpants and warm boots because they 
outgrew theirs when we weren’t looking. My kid 
rolled their eyes, but later, waiting for the vigil 
to begin whispered they were glad they listened 
to me. That night I would cry trying to peel 
the sneakers from my frozen feet.   

The warmest mittens I will ever own were a gift
from my sister. After agents killed Alex Pretti,
I called her to ask if she’d take my kids if 
something happened. I knew I was overreacting
and also that everyone I knew who drove
around our city with whistles and a dispatch
connection was asking themselves what they were 
ready for. The vigil was at the community farm 
where I have pulled a million weeds and where 
there is one tree I planted a few years back 
that I love a little more than the others. Above us 
at the top of the sledding hill we could see 
a single candlelight and walked towards it. Soon 
there were dozens of lights weaving down 
the hill and others gathering behind us too.   

When the time came to speak, one of my neighbors
said when you are afraid, you should clench
every muscle you have as tight as you can, then –  
let it go. This will let your body, vibrating in fight 
or flight, feel as if it has done what the adrenaline 
needs it to do, and then you will be able to think 
again. Another neighbor said fascists want us 
to believe we are alone in a cruel world and all 
anyone can do to survive is look out for themselves. 
Every day we refuse such mean fear, my neighbor 
said, we are winning. I wanted to share the poet
Anna Akhmatova’s words from outside the Siberian 
prison camp where her son and many other dissidents 
were being held through another bitterly cold winter. 
“I was there then with my people where my people 
unfortunately were.” I would have given that man 
my mittens if I’d thought he’d take them, if I wasn’t 
afraid he’d mistake the gesture for a threat and in 
If I hadn’t realized there is no way, when your 
hands are cradled in your sister’s fleece-lined 
knitting, to wrap a single finger around a trigger.