Life Less

Rain is flooding
The river
A casual crisis
Rising
Cross the road
I'm uselessly sighing
Breathing cat piss
And beer
Reading DH
Still in my boots
Sinking into
Sinking into
Nothing.

A photo of a photo

Memory's chain
Shiny, the part
Held now
Yesterday breakfast
A movie, a book.
A bad day at work.
The news.

Rusty, though, the end
Left dragging
Through the fog at night
Names and years.
Faulty snapshots
Of a bridge
After a flood.

I revisit the vivid
Untarnished dream links
(between peeling faces
From a yearbook)
And small sections
Of regret
That will never break down
Under the elements
Of time and change.

Tonight I sat with my beer
In the dark, following my chain
Backwards, to the bridge
The new bridge over the
Yakima, a No Trespassing notice
To their backs
Kids,
Shining amid rust.