Cormorant

He was awaken. Through the window a cormorant was at rest on the rock, stretching her wings against the rain, settling again, sleek fisherman.

He did not notice it move. It was simply gone, naturally processed, siphoned elsewhere.

He would capture her, hold her memory for good, if not for the battery in the camera or his belief that what is wild and elusive must stay so.

He opens the door and skirts the splattering sky below where the eaves should be. Still a salvo strikes his neck, clapping applause, punctuating his skin. The goal was not to feel the water but to feel the rain, feel the calmness of the unphased cormorant, like her countenance would stick to the rock after she flew away, mingling with the moist.

He scoots back inside, shakes the water from his arms and runs a hand through his hair. Drips drop on the hardwood floor, anointing earth's oil on varnish.

He catches a glimpse of a seal diving, a question mark slipping through the surface, freeze framed by the routed white wood holding glass.

He questions what he takes for coincidence, elusive signs of a catalyst, inescapable, like the rhyme he struggles not to write down.

No one likes the time balanced on a tack. Everywhere are signs to get things back on track.