Ode to the Bag of Ice at the Gas Station

Praise the chest freezer humming by the doorwith its one word, ICE, and its whole life's work:to keep a thing exactly what it was.

Praise the bag of it — eight pounds, three dollars,sweating already in my hand, and the sound of it,which is the sound of a small cheap avalanche.

Praise that nobody has ever once been sadabout a bag of ice. It is not for keeping.It is for the cooler, the cousin, the folding chair,the long green evening of somebody's whole July.

Praise a thing that is good only while it is going.Praise the going. Praise the cousin. Praise July.