Ice controls

The mornings grim habit
the car, the road and I.
This vicious cold
hardens the softened snow
into shiny sheets of ice.

I try for a fixed way of knowing
labels like stubbornly solid,
watery topped, black treachery
trying to manage the always cold car
through tire smoothed ridges of snow and ice
brake now, accelerate here.

I try not to think about
innocence, distractability;
the interplay of temperature,
sun and wind.