Ice Heaves

Scraping snow from a frozen pond

so my children can go skating

my breath melting crystals of ice to my hair

my eyelashes until I'm no longer separate from the air

and I remember this very moment

the past slipping into the sound of the

shovel moving across the ice

my boots lifting flakes of snow

I want to stay this way for always

but the thick ice heaves beneath my feet

cracks and splits the surface

and I know

I no longer believe in breaking through

or living forever otherwise.
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