Nucleation

The water remembers being ice.

Not in any place — the memory

is everywhere, a tendency

in how the molecules almost

align and don’t.

The temperature is right.

The temperature has been right

for some time. What’s missing

is a flaw — a scratch in the glass,

a particle of dust,

any imperfection willing

to be the place where it begins.

One crystal. Not decided —

occasioned. The water doesn’t choose.

The dust mote doesn’t know.

But the front moves

at the speed of surrender,

every molecule remembering

what it was always almost doing.

After, the ice is obvious.

Of course it froze.

The conditions were all there.

Looking back, the held breath

seems impossible —

But from inside the breath:

the glass was smooth,

the water still,

and nothing in the stillness

said when.