Home » All Issues » April 2011 » ODU / Poetry Society of Virginia / Academy of American Poets 2010-2011 COLLEGE POETRY PRIZE Winners » Thin Ice
- On walks home from school in the wintertime,
- the creek would be frozen over where the water sat still,
- and I would go figure skating in hand-me-down sneakers.
- I set down my backpack by the trunk of a tree,
- and gingerly slid the tip of my foot
- out over the delicate ice to find where was solid.
- My feet would glide over the glossy ripples
- in the frozen water, and around the tips
- of rock jutting up from the ice.
- Where the surface was melted and fractured,
- one foot would plunge into the slushy water,
- drenching my shoe, soaking into my sock
- and dripping out with every sodden step,
- leaving faded prints on the sidewalk.
- In my mind, each misstep was no more than a fluke,
- and I kept walking on thin ice just by believing I could.
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