THANKSGIVING, 1993

There is ice between the bullrushes.
The water on the marsh this year is higher
Than other years - an early cold snap
Together brought about with the high water
The ice between the bullrushes.

In that ice there is a ratskull:
Two icesockets and a snout full of ice
Held in the ice over the mud (there was
No time to get the skull down into the mud,
So in the ice there is a ratskull.)

The ice is firm to feel underfoot,
A new boot holds well at this plain curving
To open water where an airboat whines -
Another, an empty plain unfolds in awful dreams.
The ice though is firm to feel underfoot.

An airboat whines back and forth on the lake.
The lake seems very far from here until
The airboat slams into the ice edge -
I feel that terrible flicker up through my knees
And then I can hear again the airboat on the lake;

A cold snap comes in at once from all sides,
And it is the cold that I feel against my legs, not canvas.
A catfish frozen where it swam in the Platte,
All ten fingertips ache now like they did then,
And the cold comes in from all sides at once.