Ice Lace
I went forward, biting wind. Cold
created ice lace in my nostrils,
crinkled my skin. Nobody needed
to know where I come from. Snow
descended, blinding as a blast and didn’t ask.
We landed in the same dank class
at opposite ends of the table. My binder
broke, you fixed it with a tool
you brought from home.
Verily, I say, my heart enlarged.
Nothing have I kept in the way of relic
from that passage. The building,
with its airless rooms, was wrecked.
The room we sleep in now has seven
windows and a sleigh bed. Snow
continues falling white as edelweiss
and stars. Gently and for everyone–
the beauty of the beam,
of what is see-through.
As for disappearance, it behaves
the way of veils–
gauzily and thin as pre-existence.
Elana Wolff lives and works in Toronto. Her poems have recently appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine online, Best Canadian Poetry 2021, Canadian Literature, The Dalhousie Review, Grain, Montréal Serai, and Vallum. Her newest poetry collection, Shape Taking, was released with Ekstasis Editions in 2021.
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