Ice Skating
Light carves and dips
behind a spray of broken reeds.
All season we’ve waited
for the ice to thicken, turn oily
black, marbled with ribbons of white.
We skate, our hands clasped,
ice bubbles below trapped like sunken
balloons. We etch elliptical orbits
the way lovers might carve
their initials in a tree.
An older couple skates past us,
practiced, more accomplished.
Like delicate guesswork,
their fluid dance doesn’t require
the holding of hands.
They stop and say to us
lakes farther south don’t freeze
anymore. They tell us to savor
this closing window, don’t you
dare waste this brief gift.
David S. Higdon is a writer from Central Kentucky. His writing has been featured in Appalachian Review, Still: The Journal, Salvation South, and others. His poetry has recently been published in Once a City Said: A Louisville Poets Anthology by Sarabande Books. He lives with his family in Louisville, Ky.
See more of David's work in 12.4