An excerpt from
Proving Grounds
by Rhea Tregebov
The Top Of My Head
I get to the corner the way I get from one day to the next:
abstracted, mostly afraid, not entirely located in my body.
I get from one day to the next mostly afraid
while the boy in the playground at Huron Street, who must be seven or eight,
slides the toe of his black, shiny, rubber cowboy boot
along the black, shiny slick water atop the ice;
observes its wake, the bent, cold-burnt blade of grass afloat in its wake,
and underneath it all, the earth, cold and thrilling beneath the cold rubber sole
of his boot, and in his boot his foot, in his foot the warm blood running,
him. It is false spring at the end of January, plus eight degrees
and the water is running, it is running enough to make you believe spring.
The boy can't remember how cold it was yesterday, can't hold winter in his mind.
And here I sit, by the equipment issue at the Athletic Center, writing this,
and, god almighty, don't know how I got here.