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View Near Elizabethtown, N.J., 1847, by Régis François Gignoux
The Winter Price for Trying to Fit In
by MFrostDelaney
I watch the others skating on the pond.
They glide–so effortless–like shooting stars
against a silken backdrop, smooth as coal
that gives up its own life to keep us warm.
Before the night takes over, cotton sheets
of purple-pink-all-gray-toned offers up
a realm of dusk where I can fidget with
my laces, hook-to-hook. I weave them tight
as slow as I can, waiting for the night.
My half-gate skating mimics Tommy Smith
whose steel-shod legs go stumbling, like the hup
of new recruits who can’t march. Steel defeats
his legs, my feet, the blades a perfect storm
for falling. So I wait, won’t pay the toll
of ridicule from little avatars
called friends. And yet I let myself be conned
into companionship. But kids are cold.
I wobble onto ice, my ego sold.
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