Improv class was how
I learned to say what
I wanted to say to you–

ice became the basis
instead.
I froze on stage

into an audience of burning arms.
If limbs were currency,
I’d be rich

in dangling
inside jokes from class when
I should have let you

in on conversations we both were part of–
inches from the icebox,
our freezer.

(originally published in Rollick Magazine, Winter 2023)