Skating again

Round and again round the shoveled plot, Looping infinite eights, Feeling that nothing is lost in a score of years, I dazzle my son. He bows his knees like a sailor To get his ice legs. I haul him only a moment on his keel of gravity Before he pratfalls laughing, rolling in snow foam Outside the edge, His red double runners flopping like lobsters. The solid lake grunts and fissures Its quarry of ice. One belt arrows shore to shore. Once my leg crashed to the hip and iced Up for hours As I rushed the goalie all day in stiff pride. So now I dodge his hands, skateless he chases On the slickness - A blind man's buff of rebellious feet. Two boys snap a puck. I wince To see him play With an ice block and my skate guard. I try harder: when I stop my iron cuts, Showers him with chips. The surface buckles and groans louder. He reclamps skates. Clenching teeth, He wobbles ahead His mind upon the object, not this spectator. Then he rights his angle like a mast. That's it, darling. Your ballast is true. You are sailing now - Without this hand.