Reservoir Alphabet

At the edge of the reservoir, the buoys are red commas, boats drifting like thoughts that forgot their sentences, a heron folds the afternoon into its slow, gray kite.

I walk the service road where asphalt remembers heat, milkweed whispers its bright confetti to the wind, and the wind answers in an alphabet of reeds.

Somewhere a pump hums, keeping the water level like a steady heart, like a promise that won't speak, and the sun polishes the spillway into a mirror.

I stand in that mirror and become small, syllabic, my name a ripple, my worries a thin raft, the evening closing its book with a long, blue hand.