At America's largest inland port,
a bridge straddles the Monongahela.
Morning wrests the haze from the sky.

A man in a brown coat lolls
his heavy frame towards the rail
and says the steel mills will open again.

Old buildings fold against the city.
The river drones like the horn
of a lonesome freighter.

On the west bank, a squirrel
tiptoes on a telephone wire.
Two crows sit at the far end,
unconvinced.