Coloured Hockey League of the Maritimes

The puck skates in on parted-snow ice.

It's the season’s last game, an encore

to stomach winter’s sliver, to shrug off

the townsfolk stares.

The moonlit night is advanced in years

and highlights frontline winds. Streaming

sky trails squall skeleton trees.

Blades carve the pond.

Their cursive glide freer than

the north-rushing blood pumping

through them. Their thoughts

stick check to the gathering

freckled crowds. If anyone has

anything to prove, it’s them. 

If they could slapshot past

history’s chain-link fog

and derelict promises,

to where falling white curtains

the world, they would.