West Side Canal, Freeborn Intake

by Don Thompson

The fog has held off, so far,
clinging to the hills
until it thins to commonplace haze
an hour after dawn.
It’s not quite the season.

But soon, when the oyster white sun
is too feeble to resist,
the fog will close in, will inundate
every solid thing we need
to make sense of ourselves—

blurring our certainties
until we know
how ancient seafarers must have felt
coming at last to the end
of their flat earth.