Icicle
I am an icicle dripping from a ledge –
I was water gleefully flowing off the side of the roof, but
The cold stopped me right in my tracks.
Winter is your favorite season.
You like to bundle up in a scarf and a hat,
You like to trudge through the snow as if it were asphalt.
You like the sun bouncing of the ice so it shines inexplicably.
Icicles break very easily, with a glare, with a glance,
With a single handshake.
If you want to shake my hand,
I will let you.
After all, I was pouring off the side,
Ready to soak bedrock bottom. But
You shook my hand and didn’t drop me on the ground so
I screamed (you couldn’t hear me) and shook (you didn’t move a muscle)
As pieces of me clattered against your kitchen floor
To be wiped up with a dish towel.
You put me in the freezer quickly –
You certainly didn’t want me to melt and cover your kitchen floor. So
There I stayed and
Grew to love the dankness of the freezer,
Acquainted myself with the carton of ice cream and
The frozen broccoli and
The ice cubes, my closest kin.
We talked about the weather:
Cold. And dark.
Discussed the blinding light of the ceiling fan when the door was opened.
My dear friend broccoli, in time, was removed.
We haven’t heard from him in a while,
Until he came back half-empty;
He lost a part of himself, he said.
The door opened again, soon after.
The person in front of us –
Indescribable except its clear personhood –
Called some loud words questioningly.
She wrapped her warmwarmwarm hands around my form,
The same as it was when you shook my hand.
She took me through the bathroom, opened the window to the backyard, and
I finally found home in bedrock bottom.
Kieran M. DeMelfi 