Skating in February

There are two kinds of things that could improve this. The first is message, mostly a personal preference for me. At the end I thought, "So?". Basically you went skating. So? I understand that this is supposed to be a vignette, which is certainly a valid purpose, but the lack of anything that might give us an emotional connection - to feelings, to what happened that made this skating event important or memorable - this lack makes the entire piece seem to lack any purpose.

The other area I think could use improvement is best illustrated by some of your lines: Wobble-ankled / daredevils tempting / thin ice. These are good, tight, effective lines. Compare them to the first strophe, which might have read something like: In the deepest season / tightened laces / mittened against the winter. Basically, if you could make more of the poem like those middle lines, I think the whole would be improved.

Some of your phrasing is very nice: ice-tatted; defied undoing; teetering across..., etc. I really like these.

Alcuin