Fiction    Reading Room    Memoir    Interview
Angela Andrews

Ice-skating

Avondale/Holland
 
We collect at the periphery:
uncertain bathers at the edge
of a great white pool. But when
the sound is given, you lead
the push, your strong wax strokes
slipping through ice,
long and looping, making the first
scrawled marks in the afternoon.
I recall your stories, the photo,
a long tract of ice
as far as the eye can see,
incising the horizon,
swept clean and smooth
in a well-groomed stripe.
*
It’s what they call
a diamond day –
the white stretch fastened
with clear, cold air, nothing
between but you,
the slipstream swoop of skaters,
children on double blades
clutching chairs. You start:
sawtooth metal stuck in ice,
the push. You swing your arms,
gather yourself, thighs
thrusting forward against the hard
canal and you’re there, in flight.
Top half forward, chin tucked in,
hands linked there
in the small of your back.
 
Poetry
Johanna Aitchison
Michele Amas
Angela Andrews  
Airini Beautrais
Jenny Bornholdt
Amy Brown
Lynn Davidson
Emily Dobson
Fiona Farrell
Cliff Fell
Janis Freegard
Helen Heath
Anne Kennedy
Stefanie Lash
Jan Lauwereyns
Vana Manasiadis
Talia Marshall
James McNaughton
Alice Miller
Gregory O’Brien
Frances Samuel
Robyn Schiff
Marty Smith
Elizabeth Smither
Chris Tse
Nick Twemlow
Ashleigh Young

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