Thin Ice                                                            


            Someone said we’re most ourselves
            When things get rough

            Remembering the girls who gathered
            Round the edges of the pond
            In wintertime to watch,
            I wasn’t sure

            Behind the scarves were pretty mouths,
            We knew, and so invariably
            A fight broke out

            It must have done our souls
            A world of good
            Because the game was always
            Cleaner afterwards, and fast,
            Although by then 
            The girls had long been gone

            When darkness drove us
            To unlace our skates and
            Tramp back peaceably enough
            Towards home
            I felt a virtue in the cold night air
            And yearned already for an icy dawn,
            For unexpected spectators
            Who just might linger after a melee 
            To notice I was capable of
            Finer things


            ________________________________________________________________________


            Emanuel E. García, A Deeper Symmetry2014