Under the Overpass Aviary

At dusk the overpass opens like a throat, steel ribs holding one long note of traffic. Swallows stitch the exhaust with quick black thread, and the river below keeps swallowing light.

A grocery cart glitters with rain and bottle caps, a crown for no one, parked beside a pillar. Graffiti peels in bright weathered scales, while a trumpet from somewhere upriver leans into blue.

Pigeons rise all at once, a shaken deck, their wings flashing tin, then velvet, then ash. The moon lifts itself on the crane's thin hook, and every window learns a softer vowel.

Near midnight the city exhales warm bread and diesel. A child on a balcony names each passing train as if naming could keep it from vanishing, as if sound were a lantern we carry through fog.