Ice-Fishing

Down there, or was it up there?
There with out buckets,
some for sitting, some for holding;
line, lure, tackle, beer.
Caught fish trying to swim air,
choking to breathe our world.
Two buckets for this, one for more buckets.

Body of lake now face of ice,
water separates water separates air.
Less intensive recreation
upon a threshold of worlds
reserved for saviors or idiots.

Below an algaeic filter
slowly green, deep for the fish.
Time ebbs through our holes,
augured past my worried reflection.
Above blue and white nomadic,
snow drifts into short-lived dunes,
under a cloudless sky.
We wait unattending.

The sun bears down on the ice,
on our buckets, on our coats,
on the truck we park there.
The frozen lake comes alive,
Tension.  Echoes like steel cable snapping,
thunderbolts set in the instant
beneath and weaving under our boots.

I am too afraid to bother fishing.
I stare at the warning on my bucket
of a child drowning in its own,
and wait,

for the day to be done.