My Town

It is as though the whole town is on ice.
Skaters with a speed of birds
greet each other on reflected cloud
mid-stream, up-stream, past the crippled boats.
There is a horse and sledge.
A bonfire burns its censer shape into the cold.
Someone sells grilled fish

again today, for it's been weeks
the river froze, and a man dared
walk out on the water.
No one has looked back since:
ice-fishermen with saw and string,
the schools of children, and slower
shopkeepers like large sedate fish.

The habitual town has ceased. It's chosen
another better world, a world of days
...