The rain started fast and the creek path

The rain started fast and the creek path

was the wrong place to be, so I ducked

under the overpass and stood there

in the kind of quiet that isn't quiet —

traffic overhead turning everything

into a low hum, the rain going sideways

at both ends like something being pulled

across a frame.

The pylons were layered.

Not just tags. Names. Years.

Initials inside rough outlines,

the oldest ones cut down to concrete

through whatever had been painted over them.

1987. Three letters. Something

that was a heart once.

A phone number with the old exchange,

the kind that places you.

A bolt at chest height, rusted,

thick as a fist — the stain from it

running straight down the pylon

like a long slow argument with gravity.

I stayed until the rain stopped

and then a little after.

Reading. Not finding anything.

Just aware that someone had stood

in this same damp

and needed to leave their name

somewhere the weather couldn't reach.