The Skaters

The ice was always cracking
                        towards shore.
In its low thundering mist
we felt our own slick

                        treacheries accumulating. We skated ‘til dark,
dodging in and out
                        of the groaning
weather, shivering forward

like a train shuttering forever towards the horizon.

And only for a moment did we hope
for the ice below us to peel back, for
the surface to rearrange itself beneath us.

                        Then — we were falling, glamorously
into a black — splash of water.

                        We couldn’t wait to be famous,
or simply to leave,

                        to look back
upon it — our miniature landscape,

a diorama of who we’d once been,
where we’d placed our cold
red hands and
let out
                        our hot and hopeful breath.