Shipyard Nocturne

At the shipyard after rain, cranes stand on one leg like patient herons, their yellow throats full of steel cables, and puddles keep small, upside-down skies.

Workers leave; the evening whistles once, salt wind combs sparks out of the welding bays, each beam lifted slowly as if from water, as if the moon were teaching iron to float.

I walk between hulls still open as ribs, smelling tar, oranges, diesel, and tide, hearing hammers ring through fog like bells for a church that believes in unfinished things.

By midnight, a new vessel has a spine, rain dries to silver on its dark flank, and the harbor lights stitch their bright thread through the first dream of its traveling weight.