No River

Ice is alluring, so long as you're safe.

I was looking for hibernation,
but the roots of winter are,
shall we say, in confidence,
louder than a f*****g hammer,
like piano chords struck with
icicles in the hands of children.
They range every which way,
knotted in the engine of my car,
wisps of frost on the sidewalk,
chunks of ice in the firewood,
and I couldn’t feel the road
with my summer-blind hands,

empty they were.

So I went a-swimmin’ for refuge
in the pools of fog that creep
everywhere, baby, all over,
and it was a deep dive but
worth it since I found myself.
Not just me but you when
I touched you wickedly under
the coldest lights offered,
street-lamps that proved
there were frostier things
between us than currents,
and ice suddenly seemed

miasma, a shroud.

Reviews

[J. A. Svercek]

I think this is a truly fantastic poem. There's a great deal of depth and imagery that you don't find on this site, usually, so I am incredibly impressed.

Do you mean "They range every which way," instead of "They [rang] every which way,"?

Also I would change "empty they were" to "empty [as] they were" because it flows a little better.

This sentence has an odd structure too, "the coldest lights offered".

But honestly even with those discrepancies, the poem does shockingly well.