Cold
By Wendy Elizabeth Ingersoll
a
Late March, I pull on my skates,
venture onto the river’s ice;
slicks pool its face
but I skate the breadth,
titter at a man on shore
who kneels by a rowboat
sanding its hull—
suddenly my foot
breaks through, bitter water
sluices my boot, at once
I’m up to my waist,
hanging on to the hole, trying
to climb out, chest-deep,
I scream at the man on shore,
he only glances up, crouches deeper
against his boat, rubs the sandpaper
back and forth— I’m going to drown, there’s
no help coming from the man on shore—yet somehow
I haul myself out, crawl up the bank,
weep with anger and love.
a
Wendy Elizabeth Ingersoll’s book Grace Only Follows won the 2010 National Federation of Press Women Contest and was a finalist for Drake University’s 2012 Emerging Writer Prize. In addition to The Delmarva Review, her poems have appeared in Naugatuck River Review, Passager, Caesura, Controlled Burn, Broadkill Review, and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is a retired piano teacher and lives in Newark, Delaware.
Ms. Ingersoll poem, “Cold,” was selected for the 2015 edition (Vol. 7) of The Delmarva Review. The new edition contains the original literary work of 35 authors, selected from more than a thousand submissions. For more information about The Delmarva Review, including submissions, see the website: www.delmarvareview.com.
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