Refraction

Light bends beneath the surface, fracturing into a thousand arrows that chase the pebbles down. I watch it scatter— each photon a small forgetting.

The current writes and erases in one breath. A leaf spirals, gold becoming shadow becoming gold. Nothing stays whole in water.

Even my reflection breaks into a conversation with itself, a self talking to a self that doesn't quite match. Maybe this is how we learn to let go.

The riverbed is patient, collecting what light abandons— old coins, small stories, the slow mathematics of dissolution. When we are finally worn smooth, we will understand this too.