He wasn’t sure so he started talking
about roosters instead.

I know. I know.

Such events remind me
of the time I kept looking up into the night
because I felt a bridge
was always approaching

although I wasn’t driving through bridge country
so I don’t know what I was expecting to find
except more moon.

Maybe I’m trying to say the night
was a series of stones
or fiddling with a way to ask
about the time I made a habit
of mistaking for water
the metal rails passing through my line of sight.

Most things on my periphery are water.

When I say this, I sound
as if I’m rehearsing some stage of depression:
the water stage or the fish stage.

Maybe the night
was a fish I passed under
or the night was metal and the water was me
passing through the guts of a fish.

I could mean the night
was half-rooster
and the water was my brother
and the metal was my father.

I could mean the night
was the sound of me passing through metal
like a trout.

No. No.

Water is when the rooster and man fall
from a bridge and drown
because they stepped into the night
where they expected more bridge
and because no one bothered to tell them
look out for the moon.