The ice cracks and squeaks,

because it does hurt to melt --


and take on colour.

An ant will sit on a committee
That studies where in all the city
The children are most prone
To drop an ice cream cone.  
At tiny scales they’re not that gritty.

She melted
But melted ice is still H2O
Same girl, different form
Transformed into who she’s always been
Pressure is off when you don’t have to always win
Silly grin, welcome back
Things were looking grim for a while
but she was never lost
Just frozen for a while
Thawed out, there’s the smile
Watch out, joy is leaking in
Sneaking back into that girl
She’s still the same one
who almost gave up when her life had barely begun
But she didn’t change
even if everything else did
And it seems so strange that
She’s stronger now
Now that she melted

Jar lids pop
snow sheets slide
pitch pockets snap
water kettle groans

First light exposes
crystalline canvases
against frozen glass
the stove’s heat
melts them away
like ice Mandalas

All that is beautiful
is impermanent.

All that is unique
lives only once.

I open my door to the icy cold,
Look up at the moon to see it's no longer full.
I start my walk and notice the ground glitters
It's kind of funny, how black ice likes to shimmer

It wasn't shimmering when I was drifting earlier
Although the thrill and dodge made me shiver,
Invisibility never caused me to quiver
All it gifted me was loneliness and shelter

Does the ice feel the same kind of chill
As it wraps the world in a frozen thrill?
Beneath its glimmer, secrets are concealed,
A dance with shadows, as the moonlight spills.

I’ve got it - woot!  Well, we’ve (Lisa and I) have it. The Covid.
After living carefully serpentine lives - for the last half decade - we both have it.

Lisa started feeling ***** Friday night, after work. Saturday she had some sniffles and we both took Covid tests, coming up positive. By Saturday evening, Lisa was laid-low and looked a flu-like death warmed over. I am asymptomatic, not a cough or a sneeze, although I do feel some fatigue and an occasional little dizziness.

“I hate you,” she said, in a moment of clarity and focus. I think it’s a temporary, fever-driven hatred - but time will tell.

Charles, our escort and consigliere, who goes everywhere we go, didn’t catch it. He’s become our designated shopper. When I asked Lisa if she wanted anything she said, “Orange juice and mango gelato.” Twenty minutes later, Charles handed me (masked and gloved through a door crack) two bags - one contained a large, extra-pulp orange juice, the other had a $70 selection of various ice creams, gelatos and ice cream sandwiches (the receipt was still in the bag.)

Saturday night, I texted my mom, who’s spending yet another summer overseas with “Doctors Without Borders.” She Face Timed me not two minutes later, from somewhere in Poland, or Ukraine - 4,170 miles away - and after checking I was ok - delivered what I think of as “family infectious disease lecture #17, full of “If you’re going to be a doctors” and “You know betters.” I love technology.

My sister Annick, a doctor herself, was knocking at our (her) door twenty minutes later. She gave us both mini-physicals and left a list of things to periodically check (like blood-oxygen levels) as well as two boxes of Paxlovid, “Do NOT take this unless or until I tell you to.”
We all have Apple watches and are now walkie-talkie connected for even more instant communication.

Rebecca, my fellowship surgeon, was, of course, very sympathetic and supportive when I told her but displayed a careful, verbal, clinical distance - addressing me as “Mz Vionet” once - instead of her usual “Anais” or the even more usual “excuse me.”

I’ve been promoted to nurse, cook and bottle washer - but the ice cream, topped with a little Bailey’s Irish liqueur, is spectacular.

Anyway, here we are. We’ve finally joined the Covid parade. I guess Covid isn’t over after all.

i am
settling
floating
suspended in the unsustainable
adrift in fire
and blood
missing parts
the predecessors,
victims,
of unholy theistic ritual

being whole
was a luxury
oneness
a virtue
taken for granted
in the box
we lived and grew
the comfort in the chill
of a fimiliar place,
communities
cracked apart and tossed
separated and forgotten
the box was gone
and elsewhere was hell

to be thrown to the lukewarm sea
facing the uncertain panic of
no more
in no time
we disappeared,
used and consumed
one more brief, familiar chill
stripped of the flesh,
i am

small

Iced leaf
Like a candy peal
Sitting upright
On a frozen morn

Iced pond
Grass caught upright standing still
Blackbirds frantically seek food
Squirrels bury nuts for later

Iced gate
Someone has been here
Opening it
To start the day