a fluorescent glow from buildings; late-night programmers toss the Os of their coffee cups while charlie rows down the river, rows carefully his cargo it is limp and he imagines the city was once dark and foreign as a fjord. he pulls the oars back; feels the muscles in his back knot and this pilgrimage, this weighty thing he is facing weighs him down

the wave tongues lap, reminding him, a lurking current, sea-serpents on old maps. glint viciously, he leaves a wake behind him, a row of waves, circles stirred and stirred but never moving forward. glint viciously, he rows toward the columns of light, the sharp rows, picks the limp thing up

he folds it, love gently to the waves, watching it leave no mark except some bubbles; he puts on bones’ old glasses the traffic lights become haloed green yellow red, blinking and signaling to the missing hills and the flooded marsh flats he is weightless boatless and in the practice of a motion again and again