Concussion fragment #3

wax paper ice. no skates just my uncle's old boots. arundel, maine, late january, the woods horror-movie hushed. all these northern winters we live in black and white. i am ten or eleven, my belly pouring past the neat lines of fresh skin. a skating cousin nudges my back and i'm front-forward slipping to the hard-dead pond. i'm in a bed. i'm in my father's arms. i'm spitting bile in the toilet. out the window, my cousins lift their voices into a blue evening, peeling curls of ice with their skates.