ICICLES

Maggie Kennedy

Serrated swords,

jagged knives of ice,

drip in the morning sun,

and in their dripping grow.

Heroes are the ones

who both remember and

forget, Baldwin wrote.

The body learns early,

melting burns more.

Deep freeze.

A lone dove slices

through the silence.

Somewhere the sun

peeks through.

The icicles begin

their dripping, and in

their dripping grow,

drip by drip, each

melting marked by a ring,

like a tree adds girth,

until they grow immense,

perilous daggers of light

threatening to crash of their own scars.