Birds

In the dissolving sky, birds whose name I’ve forgotten
as the rain washes clean their wings, their traces
I love the lonely moon and dark equivocating clouds
and the birds gathering on the windowsills
in the Huangma Mountains, everything rots readily
I am listening to the rain decay on the workstations
the restive automatic slider is lithe as the rain
falling on the branches beyond the city limits and my body
I peel rust from corroded iron in the workshop, between dreaming and gazing
time has rusted, the rain pauses on the birds’ wings
then lands on my worker number, my rust-stained name
smothered in flimsy work IDs, wages, sleepless overtime
in a corner of a warehouse, gauze and injured fingers
a heavy loneliness gleams under the streetlamps in the rain
the rain crosses the asphalt road, falling on its forehead
the rain’s footsteps brush over the road’s silent vagrants
the night reveals its glistening back in the rain
the black eyes of the birds tremble in the night
the future sits heavy, like rust accumulating on iron sheets.

Image © Europeana