Mortal Words

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.