What the River Keeps

The bridge groans under its century of footsteps— each one a small loss sinking to the riverbed, where coins and keys and promises catch light filtered through current and sediment.

A child's marble rolls from a pocket. It settles against a shoe lost in 1987, both patient, both waiting to become something else, something the river knows how to hold.

We think we're choosing where we go, but the water is choosing for us— pulling downward what we cannot carry, polishing it smooth, indifferent to our grief.

Sometimes at dusk I stand here, watching the surface darken like closing eyes, and I think: nothing is ever truly lost. It just learns a different language, speaks itself in the dark.