the cold | and clumsy | of | tight skin | in | bitter winds | off the | waves and the brine | of the light rail train | shivering bodies on the coastal shelf | muttering softly | and the leaves are chattering also | the sun | she ebbs and flows | gracious days | then abandonment | I think | she belongs to a different city | . | that she smiles on a greener place somewhere else | she smiles with promise for them | and our humble city washes out gray | soaked in weeks of rain | the ground | pervaded | with frozen worms | and on the traintracks | I spy | a lifeless bird | slowly and softly decomposing