Glass Is A Liquid (In An Ice Storm) Poem by Nancy Ames

People who live in glass houses shouldn't
try to contact the people who live behind
curtains of ice, who live at the freezing-
point of heavy, heavy water and feel the
crushing betrayal of these deicate and
terrible transparencies, so suddenly
scenic and photogenic when the sun
comes out at last, all the pretty pink
sunbeams slanting under the cloud
cover and stunning us all with multiple
magnifications of every tiny, terrifying
detail.

And at night our ears tell a different
story, something out of the Dark Ages
in the tinkling fairy-music, as if we can
hear the hilarity of the ice-fairies who
are impertinently teasing the outrageous
giants of the air, who are going BANG!
CRASH! BANG! BANG! CRASH!

But then the ice-fairies always chime
in with more of their tinkling laughter,
impishly reminding us that the music
only seems to be louder at night...
then they titter and skitter away like
shards of a broken mirror after a
wicked face has looked into it.