I was born in a cube of ice.
Timmy’s nightlight
resembled a halo of dancing
rats. The top
of his lampshade was supposed to be
a cutout of horses prancing
and galloping. The first time
I slept over Timmy told me
it’s the first time
it’s ever been
plugged in. We laughed like rats or mice.
The Angel of Winter waited
tucked in a corner of ceiling shadow
to follow the light
down the hallway then left
around a small peninsula of counter
across the soft ridges
of the kitchen floor linoleum, staring
outside into the real dark.
Sometimes monsters follow lives
even more abominable than theirs,
waiting to be scared
again. The sound of hoarfrost and rime
cut across the iris
of God’s looking glass
like truancy. The world was all mirror fog
and window pane.
I’d considered gravity
and carbon
but absence,
the willingness
to purposefully not notice anything
just might have been
the preferred currency of that
collective us. When I chose
to be alone, alone
was sublime, or hiding
small, buried, and occasionally
effective, even heavenly.
Timmy and I curled then
fetal and shirtless
connecting the dots
of each other’s scratches
and bruises and burns
and stitches we called zippers
when they healed
and their hairs fell out.
Tracing Orions and Big Dippers
on each other’s backs
with our fingernails we whispered
hero’s tales in each other’s ears.
People who write stories
always say
help is on the way.
Sneaking out after midnight
after Doritos and Pepsi and Late
Night with David Letterman
to go to climb the I-94 overpass,
our hideaway, our spaceship,
our church,
when I thought I saw
a statue in the park let go a breath,
I knew
the Angel of Winter
was still there, still there
waiting for me in the real dark with ice.
