Returning

This river runs over concrete.
the land never knows where its water is till
the forgiving sea claims its daughter.
until then,
like a creature trapped under ice,
the land feels for it,
a pressure,
a weight of birds and trash
won at dawn or dusk
when sun like a magic trick turns
dark water to mirror, slick and broken
with floating objects.

This river is a city river, breathing death in
regretfully--
still, when it floods the egrets come.
tall, princely things with
awkward legs they keep a secret
until moving, when they extricate each toe by toe
slowly disdaining everything.
and at sunsets the sandpipers come
shadow puppets filling the emptiness
of the concrete slopes, horribly
whole and permanent.
and always the small birds come
and go, taking sewage fibers home
in their beaks to craft a homely nest, and
the fetid algae sinks quietly into itself, and becomes
limp hands.