A reading of the poem "Skating After School."

Reader and poet is unknown.

Transcript:

(00:00:00) skating after school in the space between school and supper light flat as a China
(00:00:09) plate sky and Ice a single seam
(00:00:13) stitched by the black trees. We raced over the railroad tracks down the embankment to the frozen pond Mufflers trailing snow embroidering our flannel genes than out onto the ice blades dividing the surface into geometry. ice writing from an old language the calligraphy of snow and then as the baggage of school disappeared became
(00:00:43) ephemeral as
(00:00:44) smoke from the bonfire where we charred hot dogs made dark cocoa that burned our tongues. We went back out onto the ice again feeling the slap and chalk of the hockey puck the body contact muffled in layers of wool the ache of air inside our lungs. And as the dock came down like a coffee cup.
(00:01:10) We saw the yellow lights. Come on up over the tracks.
(00:01:15) But we kept on playing icing the puck shooting straight for the goal legs aching Beyond
(00:01:22) endurance. Home where the yellow lights are growing is
(00:01:28) filling with the smell of macaroni
(00:01:30) and cheese and muffins.
(00:01:33) But we stay out still checking and hitting wood against wood or steel blades marking the ice until it's a Blackboard in need of a racing and when we knew we could not stand it
(00:01:46) any longer out in the cold.
(00:01:49) We clambered up the banks always falling on the Cinders would smoke and winter clinging to our clothes climbing climbing.
(00:02:00) Toward the steady yellow lights of home.