A day so crisp it
snaps underfoot – dropped
wrappings, twigs
and leaves – even
the shadows of stripped
trees on wet
pavement, the wafer of sky
broken over
what shines and gleams –
bicycle spokes, the green-
grocer pedaling to
market, boys
clustered around
a ball, houses where life
goes on in its
not quite endless
permutations. Mystery
the leaf’s vein, twig’s
arrow, reading
this way or that, in
passing.
