New Year, Frozen Lake

This late, the mountains loom and disappear.

Stars are hard to see, involved with snow. Under

the hard surface of the lake: fish, fast as matches,

faces flared-open and dumb. I don’t understand

my need to be alone. I came outside for something.

Here, the middle of the lake, night, cold, unknowable,

is nothing. Loneliness is nothing. This,

this is the world. I want another lover. But not

my body’s awful work against its edges. Not

mouths, breathing over planes of face. I want

the body’s early, needless coming near,

like these fish, in the dark, to the brightest surface.