Fishing the river

The bridge carries him up to where the river invites him, takes him down again, assumes his image like a mask above its own. Shape bleeds to shape in reflection. Furrows of face soften. A dry growth of beard spreads full. Inversions of pattern gather in his unmaking. Beneath, there are currents of time, eddies of thought, silver fish like memories alive in the river. The old man leans from the bridge, drops a line to a dreaming face on the water.