painting by Marlene Vine (marlenevine.com), poem by Roy Herndon Smith
the metallic call
of a bird cutting the sheet
of the evening blue
into intricate
orchestrations of cool notes
a dog’s hot barks strike
three times, then, close up
silence and, in the background
waves of cars roaring
and receding, leaving
voices, like pebbles on sand,
or a rock, picked up
but, like the coming
impenetrable darkness
not known, the bird trills
again, voices fall
still, a baby’s distant cry
breaks on thrumming steel
dust 