you were always a constant to me.

there was a book in the back of our classroom

tucked between crates of other, more important tomes

it had a picture of you on the cover and i read it almost every day

The West Wind is a banker in a smart navy suit and a tie. His dress shoes clack on the pavement; he’s got someplace to be, always someplace to be, rushing to the sidewalk, the subway, the elevator, checking his gold Rolex watch.

is more of a creek,

covered in yellow leaves and rotting branches 

that staunch the flow like a bandage over blood.

The river in the woods

probably used to rush

like its brothers farther north, shrieking