Spring Fog from a Rear Window on Water Street

by James Reidel

The inspiration here is too window shopped,
But the cat arches against the glass,
Getting comfortable after the long winter,
Finding some interest in its own fenestrated canon.
Or you would take the devil’s offer,
For what glitters in all his towers,
All that the eye can see that is yours.
Those all made of glass.
The greatest show on earth.
Where the straw is spun for you.
From which the hair is let down.
For no one else but a man in a wheelchair.
And then the desert returns in the bargain,
That which was promised to be “beach,”
Shingles, sand and pitch, the half roof — and waterfront town,
Gets washed out by a wall of spring fog,
A real, cold Conn. Riviera simoom of a bank blowing in curds
     and tufts,
And the starling tacking into it,
Lording over the far ridge of a gable,
Where it must see to the next ridge of this realm,
To the next wall.