Cold

It's steamy hot outside and every weed, flower, shrub, tree, and blade of grass is growing so fast that you can almost see it. So I enjoyed the fact that Poetry Magazine posted Annie Boutell's poem about cold:

COLD

Rime rings the rock:

ink freezes; wine congeals
to splintered stars;
on passing boats, men,

tied to the bows, lean
and strike the ice, jockeys
whipping their horses,

whack-whacking what
was once a wave
but clings now, builds,

and hauls boats down.
We are bound by ice.
Father heats a coin

on the stove, holds
it in his leather glove,
presses it against

the darkened glass,
and watches as heat
chases ice. Through

a penny-sized hole,
we peer at a round
and polished world

of hardening water.