Already the night birds swing —
Where the iron trestle spans
river, rusts sky — gathering
homes of mud and twig. And the girl's
bare feet trouble the shore. A fern

unfolds purple,
a violence in the trees,
and what would flower
blooms instead as shadows
of a girl, her thin dress, skipped
stones, and her voice
the water's exact blue.

Night bends low the red stems. Her body
when it moves makes
weather in the next town where the boy
she let touch her breast today
throws his baseball hard against the fence.