Maureen Bloomfield
UPHAM PARK
It
broke and I saw again
Figures without smoke. I looked inside:
An
alley patched with tomato skins,
Pigeons shredding crusts of bread as
An
old woman leaned from a third story
Shaking out a rag, the last
Spidery flecks on leaves and windowsills.
He said he knew the way out of here, but was
A remembered voice, a spotlight
Trained on the vanishing water,
The sky impenetrable to Mexico.
A man presses something toward a woman.
Small, it fits a hand.
She laughs, throwing her head back, then
Shudders as if collapsing.
Years collect in the trapped water, letters
Left in trunks of cars; carcasses of needlefish
Rehearse the tide, its disappearance
I count on, for it is better
In
memory, and clear-
"''hat the night was catching up to,
What we were thinking in the mirror.
