thin ice

Out there you never felt the whistling cold,

the scalpel probe of blue steel, seeking out

your crimson core. Scribing arcs across the

ice, arabesque and pirouette, sharp turns

where crystals flew like frozen sparks. Your

skates left traces, silvered tracks; we knew

the cracks, like sonar bleeps, would never

catch you. Oblivious, you’d spin; a snowflake

dancing, a winter moth, a transient comet

through our years. The day you disappeared

we found the jagged patch of blackness, and

a hole

in the still air.