Puddles of Big Cities

The puddles of big cities wait For drunks who long to drop it all. They won't go scattering their words Like leaves in whiny, weepy fall. They'll wash the wretched vagabonds, And every bird from blocks around, The workers with their shifts now done — Paws and feet, and wing-like hands. With shaggy fur, all caked in mud, A dog has come to wash before his date. Today to Josie, a scruffy mutt, He'll bark his tender words of love. Beside him, washing his broken tail, The cat who always picked a fight. But love has smashed the checkpoint rail — The cat's got a date as well tonight. From up above, the heavens peer In puddles, like faces in a glass. An umbrella here, a dragonfly there. In muddy slush the glimmers splash. As if the sun were rinsing its curls, Collecting its image from the shards, Into the new day, naked as at birth, Warming the passers-by in T-shirts. I'll steal a glance, my eyes narrowed tight, Find in the clouds all that I know, And to this architecture add A flock of swans with wings of snow. Let them circle between water and sky. And so they don't merge with the distant line, I'll crumble a crust in the puddle nearby — So they'll know where to come down.