Think only of white, snow and ice;
its weird transparent grip on skin
as if magnetised for a moment, clings
its cold lust for warm blood, the need
to enter and dissolve elsewhere;
and when the lake froze two years ago,
a young Polish lad slid out across the ice
dragged by two Alsatians on silver chains.
Children in houses near the lake
stood with faces close to window panes,
their mouths like tiny circles, transfixed
by fear in their bellies that the centre-ice
would creak, crack and suck them down
to where torpid glass-eyed pike eased by.
From: Forget the Lake
