Minneapolis

The railing is cold under me, I can feel that even in the looking, and the city holds itself very still against all that pale sky — buildings just standing there, the peaked one, the arch, patient in the grey like they have nowhere to be. One person on the path below, moving slowly near the trees, and something in me wants to know where they are headed and whether they have eaten breakfast and whether someone at home is expecting them back. The river must be just out of frame, somewhere beneath me, which I am trying not to think about too carefully, but the brick street and the bike path and the green still clinging to the leaves — that part I can hold without worry, that part feels like the world saying not yet, not winter yet. I will probably still be turning this over tonight, the stillness of it, the one figure on the path, the city going nowhere in the grey.