ICE SKATING AT HUDSON COUNTY PARK
Poem by Barbara Eknoian
I see the lake outlined
with Christmas lights.
from the top of the hill.
The white ice looks like
a round birthday cake,
the piles of snow
scalloped
along the edges,
whipped frosting.
We hurry to put on
our silver blades
in the rental shack.
An iron stove stands
in the center
keeping us toasty
until we skate outside
in low thirty-degrees.
My feet are numb;
I think it’s frostbite.
We head back up
the hill for home
while tears freeze
on my cheeks.
I can’t feel my toes.
Then suddenly Danny
appears out of darkness
and tags alongside us.
My face flushes.
I feel warm again.
Danny is walking us home
and, just maybe,
he likes me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Barbara Eknoian’s work has appeared in PEARL, Chiron Review, RE)VERB, and Cradle Song, a motherhood anthology. She has received two Pushcart Prize nominations and is a member of Donna Hilbert’s poetry workshop in Long Beach, California. Her fiction was featured in the 2009 Sixth Annual Emerging Voices Show produced by Sally Shore’s New Short Fiction Series. She hails from New Jersey and has never lost her accent.
“Ice Skating at Hudson County Park” by Barbara Eknoian appears in the new Silver Birch Press release Silver: An Eclectic Anthology of Poetry & Prose — a 240-page book of poetry, short stories, novel excerpts, stage play scenes, and essays from 62 accomplished and up-and-coming authors in the U.S. and U.K.
Silver: An Eclectic Anthology of Poetry & Prose is available at Amazon.com.
Silver Birch Press 