Dave Bonta's "Of ice" is only a few words long, and much of its meaning sits in the gaps between them. The first two lines show people who are "cold" and who "work at the ice." That could mean chopping it, clearing it, or simply struggling against it. Either way, coldness is both a physical condition and, it seems, a temperament. These are people worn down by hard labor in a hard climate.
The second pair of lines is harder to pin down. "Even over love / our one well" suggests that a single shared well matters more than affection, or at least comes before it. The poem seems to say that when water is scarce, survival takes priority over feeling. The word "our" hints at a community bound together by this one necessity.
The speaker sounds restrained, almost matter-of-fact, and doesn't complain. The mood is stark and quiet, with a bleak tenderness underneath. Love isn't denied, only set second to the work of staying alive.