#some afternoons she does not pick up the phone

by Anne Carson

It is February. Ice is general. One notices different degrees of ice.
Its colors–blue white brown greyblack silver–vary.
Some ice has core bits of gravel or shadow inside.
Some is smooth as a flank, you cannot stand on it.
Standing on it the wind goes thin, to shreds.
All we wished for, shreds.
The little ones cannot stand on it.
Not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, can stand.
Blindingly–what came through the world there–burns.
It is February. Ice is general. One notices different degrees of ice.