It just happens

Leaves relax into winter work of becoming mud

in the driveways and guttered curbs of Portland.

They even cast themselves as chemical prints—

countless urban concrete shrouds of Turin,

their palms shadowed points of dark reminiscence.

He falls in love with the city’s tannic smudge

like faces found in charcoal scrawl beneath his thumb,

eyes shocked wide on the stained page, unblinking,

reflecting any pinpoint of light the city permits,

accommodating, elevating every gutsy Gethsemane.