The shoe sags on the metal wire,

low-hanging fruit, tethered only to air, waiting.

Rain pours, slicking the cracked plastic soles,

a colder weight swinging, damp and deep.

Each drop a measure of crushing futility,

a memory, slack and sinking in water.

I don’t just feel the cold;

I am the cold.

It seeps into the pavement,

whispers between the people passing.

The sound is no different:

the water's patient, monotonous beat.

It falls the same on the distant, fogged glass

of the closed estate, where the chill waits,

and settles heavy on the quiet woman's locked shoulders,

who holds her warmth against the storm.

Some things

shoes,

places,

people,

memory

don’t fall all at once.

They hang,

swaying,

waiting,

until the wire finally gives