No wind for days, the webs collect mist.
Rails unfurl strands of rust beside
a river’s quiet, the friction
of cloth on a mirror,
current inscribing clarity on stone.
Oak trees gray-sleeved and muscular,
he touch-starts a jazz anthem, sax notes
woven between branches and cold stone.
He thinks it was the brass mouth of a trumpet
feeding insight while he beckoned
sunrise and coins. Rush hour fired up
up and rolling, most workers avoiding
wrong turns en route to paychecks,
streets pumping tendrils of blue exhaust.
Or, was it the night laid flat and dark
on windows? Or a dream of facing emeralds, pain
dissolving as his soul pulled glint after glint from stone,
the memories of joys steering him close to river sounds.
His eyes swivel between stone and pre-dawn sky,
the grace of breath after breath visible then gone.