Love in Hexasyllables XLI: The Scientist & The Skater

[aduvingion]

Skating with you across
the frozen lake, I try
to focus on your words
while keeping my balance.
Winter has always been
your season, ice and snow
your native elements.
You ask me to explain
why ice floats on water,
and I start to tell you
about phase diagrams,
how water is denser
than ice when it is at
four degrees Celsius,
and just as I begin
distinguishing between
the crystalline phases
and the amorphous ones
(fifteen and three, so far,
as scientists shuffle
pressures/temperatures),
you grab my hand and say,
'Why is it always work
with you?' Not unkindly,
but the subtext is there,
like an iceberg waiting
for the wreckage of us.
You smile and skate away;
I follow, still fumbling,
a bit colder inside.