An Old Man in Gray
Matt Morris

blends with the morning, a cloud
no one notices.
It’s questionable whether

he’s there at all. Like misty
fog crept from the waves,
he plods across the bridge. Like
smoke, wind swirls withered,

brittle leaves, spinning, turning
them into the forgotten
faces of the dead.

Were he discernible, it
would have seemed he tipped
his hat & bowed as they swept
past, only to die again.

Down by the shipyard,
a falsetto whistle’s blast
of steam marks the end

of the shift. Fatigued figures
off the assembly line file
out into the street.

His reflection in sooty,
smudged windows of stone-
faced buildings & the dull eyes
of passersby fades into

the idea of rain
falling upon the idea
of the sea, which is
the idea of motion &
time, the idea of
ships a long, long way away.

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