Declining to Become As Difficult As Love

Photograph: a field of hops, a bridge.

Their smiles unfeigned,
her arm around him,
groping for a nipple. Him laughing.

Low-slung sun, slant of failed gold.

A quiet singing in the air,
supervened by mutterings
of crows and magpies,

and by the sound of river water
drawn from concrete pilings,

its ever-present sighs a claim of origins,
remembered time, a

debt.