ice down Tina’s neck, breasts on the hottest

day of the year. The cube releases her

mind from the body’s prison, her tongue

from its humid cave. Then the melt

of his kiss coaxes her back into corporeal

chemistry—its cascade and rapture.

Ice swishing beneath blades composes

its own sharp symphony, percussive sluice

for ear and foot gracing the skater’s ballet—

slice, sweep, scratch, swoosh, the raspiest

winter whispers. Have you really listened

to the snap—to the earth cracking itself

in two—when you drop a cube fresh

from the freezer into a glass of fizz. You might

hear everything that will save you in that tiny

explosion. So how can we ever absolve

the theft of our awe when crystals paint

fractals on our windowpanes, the pilfering

of a word that now grates our tongue’s

skin as if it were an orange rind beneath

metal teeth. This callous ice that opens

the lake no matter how gingerly we step,

that swallows us, then seals itself

over our heads. This fanged ice snarling

and barking like the fire hydrants and dogs

of another era. This fiend ice that splinters

communities into shards, dystopian fracture

forever unforgivable.