SUBMERGED
by Skip Martin


He would go alone winters
before light
cut holes in the lake ice
sit, wait; watch
the old visions curl away
in sculpted plumes of frozen breath.
Crappie, walleye, memory.

She never knew about the

molasses-colored bottle she leaned

her flour sack against every

night...

Hard men love hard.

Depression is withheld knowledge.

The heart was

attacked.

Silver-haired, uniformed men hats

squared, flag isoscelesed.

What secret swam
inside that icy cage of bone, dried
within the gristled shell of that pumped-out heart?