Beneath the Span

The bridge leaks slowly
through its seams.
Water runs black down the pillars,
gathering at our shoes
where the road has dipped.

Above us, buses cross the dark
with their lit-up passengers—
each face gone
before we could make it out.

You had your hands in your pockets.
I had a sentence
working loose behind my teeth.
Every time you breathed in,
I mistook the pause
for permission.

A chip packet worried the fence.
A bottle rolled, stopped, rolled again.
Still, we stayed.

I thought silence was a place
we could keep returning to
without changing it.
Years have carried that error
farther than either of us travelled.

Now the gutter fills.
Rain brings up the petrol colours,
the small false sky
held under the road.
I do not look for us in it.
I watch it shake
whenever a truck passes overhead,
then settle again
around the stones.