By Deborah Kelly

Light snow
on the rinked field
and she’s axial out there
in her purple jacket.
She skates and scrapes like
ink into vellum.
Stops like cobalt
paint dabbed onto
linen.
It’s hard to tell
if she wears white space well,
or is lost in it.
At edges, where
wind with thaw and
freeze have folded
ice,
she jumps and
recovers. The old
partner lifts were just
arms.
She can skate without them.

Deborah Kelly is from Minneapolis and Chicago, but the high deserts and mountains of The West kept calling. She now lives Boulder, Colorado. There and (frequently) on the road, Deborah writes as way of life and a practice. Her poems can be found in several journals in the US and abroad. www.deborahkaykelly.com