On Ice

This girl can make a tile floor an ice skating rink, and I see a
rock and say, Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock. One of us has magic
and the other a stutter, a neurotic hitch of finding realness as
most basic. In simple things. But the little girl sliding is all
vector and joy and earthbound toe-loops. She doesn’t have
direction but is one. Like the river. Like the river. Like the river
in all seasons but deep winter, when it becomes ice and a
memorial to motion. Like a headstone. Like a rock.

Patrick Coleman‘s first book of prose poems, Fire Season, won the 2015 Berkshire Prize from Tupelo Press and will be published in 2017. He also edited and contributed to the exhibition catalogue The Art of Music.
*Photo courtesy of New York Public Library.
Explore Related Content
, ,