Walking on a Canadian Glacier

by Michelle Davidson Argyle

June 2002

It is thicker than the first waltz in your bedroom,

my feet lighter than the center of a cloud,

your hands on the small of my back like two long

breaths in the deep of your chest.

Is this ice or stone—

markers noting the date of each recession,

a river, small mountains of stony debris.

My mother was this old when the ice reached

that marker. I am walking through ice-time.

It is whiter than the first moment I tasted vanilla in June.

my mouth as warm as summer melting snow,

your hand outstretched to pay the vendor for two cones.

I am still remembering the balance of your arm.

Do not walk on the glacier.

These are scratches made by stones across bedrock.

See how deep, see the direction, see . . .

the glacier in her enormity, like the back of a swan—

feathers smoothed to catch the last rays of sun.