The Waiting Room

Sample piece from The Waiting Room

My child and I go out
into the white rush of the cold together
carrying a dish of water.
There’s a searing frost, I explain
how overnight this bowl of liquid will harden
into ice. Next morning we’ll reclaim it,
trickle hear into all this opaque solidity,
listen for the slow crack, the thinning, the letting go
and together witness even through water,
the cycles of endurance, alternation,
the tilt and slide and cold dip
of things made clear.