WATERMARK

This new moon night
the city is too bright
for all but a few stars.

On the river path, I find
a dead pigeon.  I leave it
for scavengers.  The next

morning there is nothing
but feathers and kernels
of corn.  Now the sky

hangs low and thick;
pinkish with the city’s
reflection.  This wind

speaks, it tells me
there is snow
in the mountains

but the glaciers melt.
Across the street
a light burns in an empty

room.  I feel like this
sometimes, an old house
cut into apartments, rooms

filled with transient belongings,
and here and there
a vacancy, bare bulb lighting

an abandoned space.
I wake each morning
from old dreams of past

places, relocate myself
to here, now.  The air shifts
each day, another day.