The chilled bliss of icicles frames this space that drips and lingers from the eaves. They are threat, they are punctuation, framing the tentative pause between the trees.

This journey is its own damp slog, furtive and incomplete. This house, these trees, the stab of icicles are all in the way of destinations and destiny. Or maybe something less than.

He loosens his left foot from the muddy mess that surrounds his ankles, and takes another step…