Persuaded clouds bank in. Far below, industry of dough and smoke, the rattle of an empty truck, tulips spread in twiggy shadow. New leaves hidden inside those twigs plunge toward the water within. Learning to read you, glutted, hugging the pier too tight, pulling the bridge close, lulling the birds' bodies, is not to gather a mess like a river, but to still the reflective sheen. The bridge shadows paper birds wired to the fence all winter, some missing wings, some with their beaks ripped out.
Eyesight mounts the curving ridge.
A peace of sorts. Would that the feet could move again, and in moving restore the mind to the hand. Would that the small blooms in pale repose beneath a bush said something to the one who remembered them. A violin's diminuendo becomes floorboard and background. But if the sun.