North Hill Pond

I can see the tall girl skating figure eights, backward and forward on the cleared ice of the lake, night spreading in the dark clouds. Fathers and mothers rush by, their car lights careening on the hill. My father unlaces his skates, his green jacket black from falling, his haste unmistakable. Fumbling with the laces, I stop to skim my fingers along the runners, flicking the frost from their tips, the runners blue in the last light of the ice, as the tall girl glides in and out of the dark distance, doing her figure eights, her red wool sweater flecked with frost, no night falling.