Her hand skims the railing,
Then as she looks down,
Splinters the wood.

Her face freezes in its smile.

Ice trickles down her throat,
Forming a frostbitten knot and
A wisp of sound clouds the air,
Choked in her disbelief.

"You weren't expecting me?" he asks.

The ice melts, and her eyes
Shine in the runoff.
A gasp: "No!"

His smile is not frozen.

"I love you. I told you, Karen.
I'd follow you anywhere."

"No."

"I found you."

She stumbles through the frost,
Tripping up the stairs.

"I love you."

Her eyes are swimming in melted snow.

She grasps the white-chipped frame
Of her bedroom door, inching.
"No."

He follows her, slowly. Carefully.
"I can't stand to be apart."

And then the ice snares her again.

Her slow-motion vision finds clarity
In her ex's gentle hand:
His popping tendons betray him.

For a moment, she is blinded
By the glint of a sharpened blade.

And she is frozen.