Molting Pastoral

 

In the shade of trees, the tears 

were unintended, each prompting 

more to fall. The river raised 

its surface to consume the stones, 

 

carrying a feather towards a slash 

of sun and past. The barbs drenched, 

the cavity filled but never forced 

to sink, caught in an eddy, surfacing, 

 

swirling. The green of algae 

and egg-white of foam, the light itself 

refracted like a trout’s back – 

the feather remains. Its eventual 

resting place a bank downstream, 

a bent can, a hook, a wristband 

with waterlogged ink. Remember 

 

relief with that bracelet’s removal, 

a feeling of freedom, a bus ride 

to wherever, a sandwich, a conversation, 

and the lonely proprietor in a shop 

where shelves of candy sit uneaten. 

Even at the edge, where water laps 

 

at roots, the air is a mystery of breath 

commingled into a widening cloud, 

the way that cigarette smoke would gather 

near the ceiling of a crowded room and float.