Ice Patches

Ice patches, I tell him.
- - In my head.

When I feel like I'm slipping,

I say I have ice patches.

I make light of the heaviness I feel

and he laughs.

- - but I have to try.

He knows Ice patches, he says.

- - Slipped in the driveway last year.

Went down hard.

Nearly broke an arm.

I want to tell him, then

about the times I fall.

When I slip off my chair

in the middle of a sentence

and collapse into tears,

nearly broken apart.

I have a hard time

keeping my balance, I say.

And he knows what I mean.

They put up a railing at work today.

- - To stop falls.

They were worried about liability.

Nearly lost a man last week.

And I want to tell him

how I lose myself more and more

every time I fall.

- - How the slipping has gotten worse.

- - How I need something to hold.

That he could be liable

for losing me.

But he'll say he understands.

- - That his legs don't work like they used to.

- - There's a bruise he got last week.

- - Feel the bump in the back of his head.

- - That this weather isn't conducive to aging.

- - That we "old folk" should think

about moving south, and he'll wink -

because we're only thirty,

and not quite old enough

to be brittle and broken.

And then I'll smile,

and I'll hold on -

and I won't tell him

that the warm weather

can't take my ice patches away.

I won't tell him

that moving won't stop me from slipping.

And youth doesn't keep me from falling apart.

Because ice isn't brittle

and cold won't be broken.

And it's in my head.

It's always in my head.