A Smudge

His fingers brush the hem
of my canvas coat. Parchment
and bone hovering there.

A proud brawler, an ironworker
from the river wards, is laid low.

When I was a boy, we camped
once along a cold river.
He wandered off drunk and
I tracked him through the mud,
found him sleeping in the reeds.
I curled up against him
and watched a fox circling us,
the moon bright over head.

It was not easy between us
after that. And yet

I followed him onto the steel years later.
Wind and stone, glass, rivers at the bending
horizon— the thin line between
fear, violence, us.

His head is thrown back now on a spit-wet
pillow. In his slack mouth, the stubs of broken,
black teeth.

His heart is rumbling
       gaze shifting,
       mind unspooling.

My calloused thumb, drawn gently
across his brow, leaves a smudge.