It’s a good thing
my mother didn’t know

I was out skating alone
on the long pond that night

with thin ice rumbling
under my blades

I was flying blind
toward a reflected moon

the darkness below the ice
a deeper dark

than the sky above
I soared

with the rhythmic
scrape, scrape, scrape

of steel on frozen water
swooping over the dark into

the dark enjoying the harsh
bite of wind on my foolish face.

I could easily have disappeared
that night but instead

I opened the kitchen door
where from the light

my mother said, Where’ve you been?
Sit down. Supper’s getting cold.