I skated myself across a pond
In cursive abandon and back again
And was happy with the impression I’d made
And that others could see my giant scrawl
All winter.
But then came spring and the ice fell in
And everything came back to life but me,
Thawed, dissolved and dropped to the depths
Of a pond.
One day years later I sunk a line
In the pond and caught a fish and brought
The fish back home to scale and slapped
It on the table out back with The News and a knife
To scale
And suddenly a pattern emerged—
Or a pattern I imagined, perhaps—in its scales
Which reminded me of a thought that I’d thought,
A dance I’d improvised, a doodle I’d scratched
On skates.
So I put down the knife with a sigh and I put
The pulsing fish in the bucket with water
And brought the naked thing back to the pond
And threw it in and watched it swim away.
And I
Stayed hours by the pond on a rock that day
And the next day went back with a pad and a pen
And a thought, or not, and flexed my toes
And wiggled my legs in abandon and started
Writing.
