After school my brother slinks into the blue shade of the pines. Every year it seems, he slips and falls on the ice: bruised kneecaps, scrapes on his palms, the wind knocked clean out of him. He slips but is slow to help himself back up. He finally stands— a tall willow bending toward a frozen pond. He thinks of the bottom of the lake, and how it's dark, and whether or not there are dozens of fish down there, languid silver or white. These fish have no breath, only lidless eyes that look side to side. They don't mind the icy layer between their realm and the sun. He skates over them ever