Song of Frost

by ALICE B FOGEL

In the morning near the river cold air
outside is brimmed with rivered air and inside
another breath streams in sleep’s heat 
how the two
kinds of air each with an instinct to seek
the other move toward a room’s glass
not reflection not wall but a clear
still river not unlike air its quiet lingering
a devotion a study in convergence 
a conversation between
outside and in between air and air asking
two kinds of question where are you who
are you meaning the same thing meaning
I love you and I’m afraid look now 
look at the slender pane between them 
can you not feel this
thrill when you breathe the world 
breathes feel this touch with your hands 
how the rime we make is real 
enough to dampen our skin
with what happens when the force 
of cloud-forming spreads to a silken 
scrim that can take the temperature
at the center of us to assemble the infinite
rivers of possibility into a visible substance
at the back of it one smooth surface
the materialized air a river ravishing air
on either side other unto other longing 
for the opening of a window