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Joanne Detore-Nakamura
Ice Princess
I love the winter --
the quiet of late nights
with empty, lamp-lit
streets. I walk
block after block, my
hands shoved in the pockets
of my blue wool coat,
my tartan scarf wrapped around
my mouth. The only sound --
my rubber-soled boots
pressing packed snow
like Styrofoam twisting,
the snow glistens silently.
Contemplating love's first kiss,
imagining soap opera style skits
set in my high school hallway
against a backdrop of gray
metal lockers, I turn right onto
Frankfort Street.
Outside my English class,
he approaches me,
then leans into me,
his arm positioned just above
my head. He closes
in on me, nose to nose,
lips to lips by the time
I make it
to Third Ave.
From Third Ave to Palmer Street,
It's a blur, a montage of Risky Business
meets Blue Lagoon,
a fade-out,
into a tropical island.
Gauze curtains blow in the breeze.
I wear white, a filmy number,
with breasts like ripe apples,
bursting from my bustier.
We have sex, many times, consecutively,
with no rest in between
and no details, body-parts obscured
by bed sheets and inexperience
by the time I turn up
Fifth Avenue, my street.
It's onto the holding-stage by the time I get to 218,
my house up ahead.
No one dares fall asleep, but my feet are numb
in my boots. Only the wet wool
of my scarf presses
against my mouth.
My hands hold nothing but
the lining of my pockets.
I wonder though, climbing
the stairs of my porch,
brushing my boots against
the cocoa mat,
if he ever knew that
I was not the
ice princess he imagined.
©2003 by Joanne Detore-Nakamura
Joanne Detore-Nakamura, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Humanities and Communication at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Her creative work has appeared in publications such as Purdue's VIA: Voices in Italian Americana, York University's The Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering, and will be anthologized in the forthcoming Sicilian Voices.
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