Ice

There is a thick layer of ice everywhere,
and I, like Whitman,
am pouring out through the soles of my feet and freezing in puddles on the pavement.

The grass is still so soft and silent and
green, green, green
as it is preserved in a fragile tomb of ice
like stabbing knives of thick cold pain--
the ones that I thrust into myself

I must feel something!
I cannot feel, and I am frightened.

I am trapped inside my body, I am no longer alive
The smallest of my fingers no longer respond to my will
They are like corpses' fingers, cold and rubbery

I see the delicate beauty of the sparkling ice and I think,
"I should love this."
Last time there was ice, I could see as others could not
I could hear the movements of the tiniest molecules as they danced
I could feel light, I could taste sounds, I could smell temperature

Now I can sense nothing,
except as though through a fog of hazy, poisonous smoke.