THE ICE IS CRACKING

A woman measures the emptiness within her while her love recovers at the therapy center. Now alone in their apartment, she repeats the actions she has made so many times, night after night. She searches the trash, the bottoms of coat pockets, and searches the street for the car, looking for clues that would prove to her that the other—who is no longer there—has consumed. She wonders if, as with the debacle in the spring, succeeding in detaching herself is something that happens suddenly or if it has been brewing for a long time beneath the surface.