As if the name isn’t enough,
she insists that I stand on the porch, too,
to look at the beaver moon,
which is indeed pale as the rings
around birches along the river, or bright
enough to light them, and barely obscured
by the early evening streetlights and sirens,
the icicles grafting onto each other
in regimented curtains. Here
and there, one takes an abrupt turn
where it’s been dripped on—
sudden left elbow tapering out.
My friend says nothing can be done
about the icy intersections except patience,
but he also recommends wrapping
a turkey in bacon, so take your best guess.
The term fishtailing makes me wonder
what it would be like to be propelled
by sudden shifts from behind or to wade
across a street completely submerged
in fins. The ice seems suddenly preferable.
In fact, we snap off ice spears
from the roof and compete, perhaps
not as safely as one might, at hurling them
into a snow bank, where they remain
wrapped in snow as though modeling
the rule for treating impalements:
leave the object in place.