Aliki Barnstone In the New Year I took my dog across the frozen lake. Some days the snow and ice make light. Not so today. Under white sky the white lake didn't shine, but stretched out to a bank of spiky trees. In places ice rose up like waves. Thin sheets broke through as if, in an instant, the cold had stilled a storm. And it was quiet, except for the wind, the shush of my boots flattening the snow, and a heaving and scraping like a huge clock. Like a child, I imagined an iceman laboring under there to keep the machinery going. I felt no compassion, no fear, and saw no value. My dog heard the sound as well and stood a moment, head cocked, ears forward and alert. Then he leapt, raced, dug beneath the crests of frozen waves, and turned to me his snowy snout grinning. Nothing else moved. The city and its capitol, the houses and their yards lined the shore like relics. Although in this season the lake is frozen so deep they drive their trucks across, they say you hear the ice shifting. That must be what we heard. And the iceman is the work of winter, the neighbors shoveling under the wheels of their cars. And me, I shovel, too. I thought clockwork as I threw the ball for my dog, watched him run ahead in the New Year, and walked on in the nullifying white. Winter Bus Ride in Wisconsin The sun rises quietly this winter morning: no red, no pink. Snowy landscape etched in black. Distinct outlines of hills. Groves are crosshatch. Inky cows stand bunched around bales of hay at barnside. Fenceposts are fat strokes on a lined page, the human marks of differentiation, separating plot from plot, fragile signs, scrawl on a monotonous field of corn stubble. Spring Flick Tonight you remember adolescence in Indiana when on a dirty floor a girl laid out cards and read your fortune. Dogwood, forsythia, and redbud bloomed in humid air, in the smell of cut grass. Irises held lanterns of desire. The girl, the house, the verdict elude you. All detail is forgotten, except you remember that then, as now, you wondered, how can spring remain outside me? And you stood in the warm night listening to the sound of your own eyes blinking in the dark. Walking to Work in Milwaukee I can't tell if the forecast is golden or dire. The weather turns from cold to bitter. My career is uncertain and the wind is splinters. I scowl at the crosses, the Jesuit banners honoring good works, the stars and stripes atop every tall building; and I smile at the red-cheeked woman running for the bus. At her feet are litter and ice; on the trashcan a sign reminds us every litter-bit hurts. The weather turns from cold to bitter. Do the thinly dressed sit in the cathedral for solace or warmth? Where do they go to sleep? I know I'm entitled to nothing yet my undemocratic heart disagrees. I can't tell if the forecast is golden or dire. First, the scene where they dangle bread before the hungry. Then the other where they lay dozens of roses in my arms and applaud loud and long, the scene before I wake and ask, Who are the they? My career is uncertain and the wind is splinters. They are incoherent. They are not complacent. They are tired. Some are angry, some greedy, some cruel. They want, bless, confess. I can't read the immense countenance of streets or sky. I can't tell if the forecast is golden or dire. The sky is clear, dry, blue, cold; the streets, dirty and interesting. At the mission, people smoke, indifferent, lean an elbow on an outspread knee. A sign reads, Jesus saves. One of many. It's easy to be friends and easy to be afraid. More difficult is pity and self-pity. My career is uncertain and the wind is splinters, In the elevator I stand, suspect among co-workers, smelling their sick breaths as good morning dully echoes good morning, good morning, my keys in my coat pocket. I can't tell if the forecast is golden or dire. Aliki Barnstone's new book of poems, Wild With It came out earlier this year, and she is also the author of Madly in Love . Her poems have appeared in The Southern Review, The New England Review, The Southwest Review, Triquarterly, and elsewhere. She also is the editor of two anthologies of women's poetry, A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now and Voices of Light: Spiritual and Visionary Poems by Women from around the World from Ancient Sumeria to Now.