Apparent

Our numb ungloved hands struggle with skate laces

Puffy fingers and apparent breath

Snow cloaks the trees around us, the roads are icy minefields

We have nowhere we can go

We have nowhere we need to be

The pond’s frozen-fast surface shimmers under our sharp strides

Left, right go my feet

Left, right goes my brain

On one stride I long for thaw, for shouts and sloppy cannonballs like meatballs plopping in sauce

Spaghetti dinners on the dock

Warmth and light and noise

With the next I bask in the icy air

I am blanketed in monochrome repose

Burrowed away from rude phone-groans and duties

I know one day soon this frozen water will break and change everything

But until then in, out goes my apparent breath

And left, right go my feet