Memory in a breath.
In the winter dark before dawn
you look at the man jumping on the jetty
and the other on board throwing to him
bundle after bundle of papers and magazines,
the silent cold at once filled
with busy breath-arrows:
in the boat arms in see-saw-like arcs
and on the jetty legs expertly bending
and supple forearms and hands slightly cupped.
In a glance you take in
the same wooden planks gnawed by salt and frost,
the flickering lights along the canal
and the same early, ready silence
suddenly filled with gestures and loud talk.
In an instant you are plunged
in your early workdays by the bridge, water pitch-dark
and on your skin the texture
of paper, plastic, cardboard and elastic
and fast fingers sorting out a beehive of things,
a chain of passing, swishing rims.
And whispers, jokes, yawns, routine-rites.
Breath of a hard, never ending time
that glitters now with this cloud of breath
as if it could just call you back:
hard time but hard to say
you wouldn't do all that again,
maybe it's the air's eager heart,
hard to say you wouldn't re-taste it all,
feet banging on the jetty to start with,
and most of all this puff of breath in front.
