There was a shot of wind darting in from somewhere out north, lifting up little tufts of snow and speckling the sky with dots of crystal.

There was a throng of people warmly dressed, taking puffs of tobacco near the door, moving this way and that in gesticulation, piping out opinions on football and grain beer and Valentine's day.

There were faces drawn out long, excogitating solemnly, all along the bar. There were bodies moving near one another, there was music blaring, the dull conversations dragging several decibels up, the privacy of speakers all ablur in that wash of noise.

You were there and then you had left, had sought out something other. You had turned several corners, out past the little streets and onto the lightless highway, uncluttered yet with pie-eyed drivers.

You're sitting there, dragging your fingers through the smokes you've got left, scanning the airwaves for a station with something good. You light up a cigarette, breathe the sweet cancer deep, and set your eyes to the ondragging road ahead. There is a breathing in the night, there is something moving in the night, something new, culling in the footfalls and lashing up the fury, something larger than mountains, pulsing rhythmic as it settles dovelike in the deep.

was it you there, was it you that was there

You're thinking of the night ahead and the notes sung out from heartstrings

was it you in that quiet

You're thinking of the thousand bits of broken glass, of the cresting of waves, of small hands and china dolls.

was there something sheltered there, something hidden

You take a long hard drag of your cigarette as you pull up to the house. Plashing little seas of snowmelt, you make your way to the door and, through the house and up the stairs, to the little room, the television on and the musk of smoke stagnating.

You're lighting up another smoke as you lie on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling, breathing in the ashcloud and breathing out yesterdays. Exhaling years.

You think of all the words you want to say, of all the words in the world, all the right ones and all in the right place, and how it'd never be enough.

You think of songbirds leaping from the outstretched limbs of trees, beckoning their littered young with bellows from the hurting places.

was there light in that shadow, did it fall from you then

You think of how you want her here, in your arms, to fuckall with the miles and the months and the quietness.

You think of a song by Pink Floyd, of how the words are just way too right.

You think of what it is to be here now, to be coddled up in this empty room without a computer, without a voice. You think of her and of all the words you want to say, wanted to say.

was it you there, was it you that found me there, was there light that had drowned out all those shadows, had wrought listless all the treasure from the secrets of the fold

You're flipping off the television and turning out the lights. You are washed in all the naked worries, in all the dreams aflicker, in the scorn of silent night.

You're turning this way and that and you're slipping voiceless into sleep, through the tears in the cotton and on to the varied roads, to worlds beyond the vagaries and this fluid listing keel.

We are standing on broken glass

There are a thousand bits of broken glass

But we'll pick them up together