Carrie Cutforth

Sometimes ice melts

it’s easy to forget that it does

during the broad trunk of winter


after all the fuss it made, blustering 

in like it owned the place, lolling 

its blue strangled tongue over 

the goose-pimpled skin of the city


like a loud brash penniless aunt making

bold declarations that the sauce lacks salt


slowing down our heartbeats with 

its thick crystallized veins and holding 

ransom the pulse of the trees and power 

lines and cozy family dinners set 

to match in Xmas sweaters

you’d have figured the ice was here to stay,

the new normal; that the glacial envelope skating 

over the bleached bones you had buried deep 

in the backyard would keep them from churning 

up like emotions and heartburn and bat wings 

in witches’ cauldrons and other unwanted curios

you got comfortable with coldness, didn’t you

acquiesced in acceptance of frigid temperaments 

and thick slow moving moods, the blunting

of sensations and sensualities numbed 

with freezer burn — ‘cause you’re too afraid

 to be drowned

and swept away again

when the heart drips wet at the hesitant 

tender slaps of an unforeseen body , warm 

as a radiator, the hot water bottle

you are afraid to embrace


Sometimes ice melts

it’s easy to forget that it does