the two of you walk around the lake,
trying to balance on the familiar, unsteady ground.
around you, icicles hang from trees like glass ornaments,
swaying lightly in the wind.
they’re on the edge of breaking off the branches
but they don’t.
as if the heavy silence in that canadian forest
froze every glinting piece of ice halfway
between break and connection

you look into the nearly frozen water at her reflection:
her face, slightly stretched and pinched and distorted;
her pink jacket, once lovingly warm, now looks exhausted.
how did I love you before?
the ripples in the lake bring your reflections closer together
and you feel guilty, for a moment, for thinking that question.

but the two of you are pushed an inch away again,
and you realize
your pink jacket in the water is just a shade duller too,
your face pulled in just as many directions as hers, and
you think, what if she’s also ready to say goodbye?
maybe she’s as ready as you.
you watch both of your reflections as they dip, rise from the water
the space between them growing closer and farther,
closer and farther, as if they’re caught in a dance
resisting the urge to finally walk away

the edge of the water starts to freeze,
engraving the blurred reflections of you and her into the ice.
in this silence, the figures refuse to break