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7 Katherine Skating the Ohio, 1916 Late December, everything brown or buried under a pall of snow, a girl with only the fore-hope of family and grandchildren waits without muff or mittens beside the narrow river, among other young of her small town, as the great wagon is pulled cross-river testing the strength of ice. When the all-clear bell clangs from the other side, with river transformed to thickest glass, she pushes out, above lunker bass and phantom catfish, to cross and re-cross the Ohio like the Shawnee of her past. Her borrowed blades scraping, etching similar circular forms, for no other reason than joy of motion in a stopped time— images from family history, in the only picture between wool cloud and lace snow I have of her, grandmother so young and alone, in my head. ...

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