I Wish I Could Skate Across the Wide, Frozen River

--from lines by Joni Mitchell

As a schoolboy, I never understood
the geography of lakes, how only they
could have fingers. But I always
knew that rivers were full of hands,

hands of everyone dead and fantastical,
just beneath the flowing surface, and
even now, I will waver my hands above
the crest, nervous before I plunge them

into the cold, feeling nothing but force
and fluidity. Thus I remember
my bare hand on your brother’s leg,
with everyone of us spread flat

on the frozen creek that clicked
solid from the sudden sub-zero night,
and all our hands on one another--
Tommy, Kenny, Elizabeth, Chuck, Mike,

Connie, you, me--or on the colding
ice. We each traded turns to watch
the denser, warmer water fall through
an open hollow of ice, listening

to the water’s quickening, on its way
to confluences larger than us. We
stilled our bodies, sprawled and
seraphic, alive in the cold air,

connected by some great blood. I
would call it joy. Why else did we
endure that old exegesis of touch,
palm, and clasp? Our hands stayed

warm. But today I wish for a greater
river, frozen all the way through,
one mile wide, and I would skate
across it, gliding over all the hands

in the river, each one open and supple,
gliding over every last human
touch that broke surface and broke free,
because, my love, I have hurt you,

and I wish to skate away, over everything
frozen and closed, I wish to skate
away over this river of hands, I wish
to skate away because I have hurt you.

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