Let’s Talk for a Moment

about the persistence of ice, my father, in Michigan,
trying to manipulate frozen water for months

in his driveway. I can picture him now in his snowsuit,
thick gloves and boots: plowing, shoveling, scraping.

Different types of ice occur depending on speed,
location: drift which floats on the ocean, anchor

at bottom of the sea, freezing rain that icifies midfall,
icicles that weep down store awnings, sharpened

into skewers. Sometimes I dream about the rime
I scraped for years off my windshield, that layer

of solid fog, a pest in the Michigan morning,
when I was running late for Russian class, repeating

the rhyming Pushkin lines I needed to learn that day:
Мороз и солнце; день чудесный! Еще ты дремлешь,

друг Прелестный! I’d say, over and over. And there
were other times when I was injured by ice,

slipping as a child and bursting into tears.
Crying is a sort of melting. We’re all hard ice before

a sudden pain or fear splashes its sun against our
coolness. I remember when my great-grandmother was

on her deathbed, I saw my father cry for the first time,
an avalanche of snow tumbling forward. He rested

his forehead against his inner elbow, leaning against
the bed where she lay. Moments later, he returned

to his habitual stillness. After a few days, I told him
that I’d seen him crying, and he denied it, not wanting

to talk about the warm waters swelling underneath,
not wanting me to know of them. Ice is a quiet,

fragile strength. Lately, I too am held together
by a cold so feeble I can break apart any minute.

But let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk again about snow
and ice, my father in his driveway, an immigrant

to America, laboring over American ice, spooning it up,
like cold rice for breakfast, into a pile in his corner

of the suburbs; let’s talk about my father, who says
he’s not afraid of springtime, hate crimes

against Asians, who tells me he always feels safe
in his city, where he can stay inside his home,

barricaded by snow, avoid other people; my father,
who asks for a door camera for Christmas, who watches

Forensic Files, learns all the different ways one can
get lost or lose someone; let’s talk about the emails

my father sends to my brother and me, a list of his life
insurance, he says It’s time to think about eternity.

When I think of eternity, I always think of ice, the glaciers
that persist for centuries, seracs and crevasses.

It is April, and my mother sends me a picture of their
deck covered in snow. I imagine my father sliding

on his boots, drifting quietly outside to see his wintery
spring, his ungloved hands anchored in his pockets,

his eyes raised to heaven, waiting for more.