The Sound

Our cove began growing ice
the day after Christmas — a veil,
close to the dark rocks, fluttering
on the waves, spreading,
sprawling from one shore to the other
until the Sound was hidden — no hint
of moving water beneath that solid mass
except at the edge of the land
where the movements of the tide cracked the ice,
thick, into chunks upended or sideways —
the land and the sea frozen for months
until a narrow channel of running water
began in the center of the Sound
and grows now, daily, as subtly as the ice grew,
and in the open space, grey,
mirroring the grey clouds hanging low,
a pistachio green lobster boat
maneuvers through the ice floes heading out to sea.

Kristina DeFrancesco