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| SKATING RINK
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I have to fill the swimming pool today,
I say the same mistake three times
on this cold day, high of minus twelve.
I mean rink.
The last-clinging leaf
always dies at the bottom
of this clear miniature lake.
Fence reflections ripple
in a distorted wave,
slowly freezing
into picket soldiers.
Not big enough to really be called a rink.
Three strides across
and over
and out.
Something to capture a wafer of winter on.
Something to scratch our signatures on.
The snow gathers.
I shovel in the moonlight.
Some nights, too cold to skate
it becomes a magnet to draw in the stars.
And here we throw a puck at it
and fake a game on boots
for five minutes
before we're frigid and bored
and a fight breaks loose
over who's in net
and who's on dad's team
and can't we just pass the puck around and
I score! I win!
Then there are nights where the snow
comes down
through the halogen lamp clamped to a maple branch
like snow in a snow-shaker Christmas scene,
and we family-pose a postcard skate,
an instant
of imaginary purity
just outside
of our ability to hold on to it.
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from The Wind is a Tall Man Striding
watershedBooks
2000
Copyright © Jim Slominski |
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