Dry day. Leaf whorls. Something nudges, “Look upriver.”
Cautious phantoms—five deer—walk across the river.
Loose setter questions who I am, looks to her,
“Ok to take this tangent across the river?”
What hard-choice desperation would make someone
try to throw their only bike across the river?
Rough-red fabric underwater, makeshift heart,
holds, points, indeterminant, across the river.
Scrabbler, shore-bound, read the rock runes. They’re cliff notes
from me, pacing the edges here across the river.