Sunday at dawn: cold and still: chimneys silhouetted like blunt paper dolls against the flat sky: bare grassy earth like iron: fringes of ice along the sidewalks: blank windows: a single gull flicking its long pinions, sailing low over the roofs: and now an invisible cacophony of crows: power lines crisscrossing the street like cat's-cradle string: streetlamp a tight ball of light: the slam, somewhere, of a car door: and now a motor cranking, catching, roaring, vanishing: and now silence: now the cold closes its fist: and the day hesitates: