Among the hundreds,
one leaf hanging.
Pink hibiscus
flowers, just showing
the sun their red
tongues, their pollen-blobs.
Morning sun, the
most lovely: that angle
of the rays, and the dust not
yet as risen
as it is at evening. The world,
the hibiscus bush,
the city: cleansed by darkness.
The light making
a communion of shadow and shine
among the gathering
of leaves, branches, blossoms,
cobwebs, feathers.
Among the hundreds,
one leaf hanging.
As she runs
in her business suit to the train
a woman is brushing
her hair. Above the street
a single bird has come
to sit on a wire.
Its silhouette, a comma,
underlined,
inscribes a dark pause
on the whispering sky.
This poem won second prize in the Karen W Treanor Awards 2014.