Mini icicles like disempowered mountains
hung upside down from the sky
rise from the sign dutifully marked
No Parking: Towing Enforced.
It is thirty-four degrees & shame
drips from the sky, too dense
& near-freezing to ignore yet
still, some tread bare foot & hood down,
welcoming the wash of The Way.
It paints the bricks & moss brighter
than before, tugging out & rinsing away
their darker tint. But the rain doesn’t last.
The paint doesn’t stay. The bricks
return to their normal, dull pastel.
here
& the icicle moss—an unreachable
green dropped out of the hiding
clouds & dripped onto stones of age—
fades into oblivion as if it never existed at all.
here
Don’t park here, icicle moss.
Towing is enforced.
Kasey Roper 