Cook Takes Stock after the Ice Road Fails

Onion. Rutabaga. Chive.

Beeve sides. Pork hide,

the whisky, boss’s red wine

all gone down on candle ice.

Our good mules, two to a cart.

The yoke strained but yoked

they stayed, a tangle of leather,

flesh, and harness as water rushed

to fill the space where the cart

dimmed before the mules did.

Not a thing we could do.

Not ice or man strong enough

to brace against such weight,

to save what we’d lose. Yelling

from the ice shelf in the first shatter

of hooves on ice, we urged our Mollies

landward. When the floe tilted,

the mules rose like wild messengers

from the steaming churn of water,

icy spray off their shorn manes.

After, the last slow bubbles lingered.

No sound but ice docking ice.

I swore to the men we beheld baptism,

and what was there but to drop

to the snow, pray that the provenance

of mercy is not the heart of man alone?