Rill-- Balboa Boulevard

Excised stream--
Its empty trough
Still attended by eucalyptus,
Lanceolet leaves pinked
By beetle and breeze,
Groundswells memorialize
Dryness,
Clumps of grasses hang on,
Islets for latecomers
And sifted soils
Trunks chip and peel,
Not like old walls
But like the working surfaces
They are-- toiling
To reshape wind
And delineate
A lost flow.

Laura Stickney

photograph by Laura Stickney