We sit on the ice-cracked dock.

Its legs hold up wood planks
that hold us, shivering, over lake water.

I alone see
something in the sky
that moves. I will strive

to love my idea of you
and maybe I can love
you, even,
outside of that.

Floating buoys impose an order:
without them, you say,
we can’t be sure
of the movement,
whether frigid mist slips toward

or away from shore.
Threads of it condense
and stream among a child’s
many-colored balloons

left on the white edge
near water plants frozen in shallows,
snow-dusted candelabra forms

for flames we imagine
into brittle air, to brighten

our dark table.