No one did figure eights. When the pond froze
we walked under the trees around its edge
and looked for cracks, wondered if the ice
was solid, how thick, who would venture first.
No one we knew ever fell in through the ice,
but we'd heard stories we didn't need to hear
because in New York winter the cold
was cold enough. We took off our boots
and made too much of it, undid the laces
(that were so quickly knotted under roofs
burdened with new snow) with nimble
fingers limbered by central heating.
Someone always went first. Soon, the rub
of blades across the ice, the rub that made
a sound I can't compare another sound to,
signaled winter like a fanfare. So began
the criss-cross of lines, the powder gouged
by blades that sat the rest of the year out,
the meaty thud of elbows finding ice
less friendly than a road. With my hands
behind my back, each year before long
I got the manner of gliding back again
and swanned across the unruffled pond
that kept its dangers hidden under glass.
we walked under the trees around its edge
and looked for cracks, wondered if the ice
was solid, how thick, who would venture first.
No one we knew ever fell in through the ice,
but we'd heard stories we didn't need to hear
because in New York winter the cold
was cold enough. We took off our boots
and made too much of it, undid the laces
(that were so quickly knotted under roofs
burdened with new snow) with nimble
fingers limbered by central heating.
Someone always went first. Soon, the rub
of blades across the ice, the rub that made
a sound I can't compare another sound to,
signaled winter like a fanfare. So began
the criss-cross of lines, the powder gouged
by blades that sat the rest of the year out,
the meaty thud of elbows finding ice
less friendly than a road. With my hands
behind my back, each year before long
I got the manner of gliding back again
and swanned across the unruffled pond
that kept its dangers hidden under glass.
