The Slow-Cooked Sentence

The results of a pogonip, or “ice fog.” Photo courtesy of English-Word Information.

It was way past midnight and a thick, cold fog encircled us. Perhaps it was our first date or maybe our second, I can’t remember now. What I can recall is the warmth of his hand through my glove as we walked down the street, and how ice crystals sparkled under streetlights. I breathed in the sharp air.

“We’re in a pogonip,” I said as clouds of my warm, moist breath froze in his mustache. He chewed a crystal and I laughed.

“Pogonip,” he said, repeating the Indian word for ice fog, shaping lip and tongue around unfamiliar letters, owning them, owning me.

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