Canals

We come awake as the river mouth puckers
and spits us toward the harbor.
In slim boats for slim passages,
we pass windows bearing childhood’s
child-king faces. Icy vaults.
Filigree of fingerprints.

Nearing the inmost city… a brief silence
as the blacksmith steps back
from a white heat, the shooter reloads,
and the oarsman refigures our fare.

Ice. What’s ground the night away hones a city.
Crystalline viscera inside the cracked geode.
The sheen of iceas it feels
its way backwards to rain.

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