By Kira Corasanti

Today I Dragged Myself Into The Woods

by Kira Corasanti Photography by Juliette Fredericks

And stopped underneath an oak, listening for the last crow call, garbled and loud like a kettle that has sat on the stove for too long. The silence that blanketed the ground muted thoughts I mistook for wind.

A hazelnut found its way beneath my foot, cracking beneath the gait I acquired watching other hairless creatures stomp about the earth. I trudged on, the snow blending brown mimicking the rabbits who change their skin. A wry epitaph to winter; I only saw brown rabbits.

Where was Jack Frost hiding? Buried in the hot confines of wrinkled sheets, “Just a few more minutes” and cracked, cold toes wiggling, turning the sun on high. Defrosting Jack, who pulls covers up to his cold, blue nose, with lids that do not lift to watch the day steal his icicles and the buds that slip into flowers before his alarm.

Yesterday, I met a man walking near the road, he raised his hand, beckoning, and I, hesitant, approached. He was selling a pair of skates, ice skates. I took them from wrinkled hands, tossing him an extra dime. Marveling at the ancient blades, I tucked them beneath my bare arm, and continued along against the wind.

I brought them with me today, to the lake at Ram’s Head. It is February. My bones are hot. I peeled off my clothes and plunged headfirst instead. H