She cuts and stings like ice, onions. A vacation spent working overtime to stay optimistic, to stay standing. I help friends with the chores, but am fed up with tangled lines and chapped lips. One night she quits and we light smokes with a book of matches because we can. One friend cooks breakfast burritos in the snow but the eggs are frozen. We drink beer for lunch and roll cast across the river. She steals my coozie but builds my character. Everything freezes. My favorite task becomes chipping ice out of eleven holes. I snuggle my water bottle to fall asleep, flapping tents delaying my dreams of returning.