Last night with our minds still in cold April
in the late evening we watched the river
heavy with the hard rains of the recent spring
as it wheeled past wrapped in its lowered note
by the gray walls at the foot of the streets
through the gray twilight of this season
the cars vanished one by one unnoticed
folded away like animals and last
figures walking dogs went in and shutters
closed gray along gray houses leaving
the streets empty under the cries of swifts
turning above the chimneys the trailers
parked under the trees by the river bank
stood as though they were animals asleep
while the animals standing in the trucks
were awake stirring and the animals