Hot spring water steam, like our breaths
around this late tram’s pantograph,
marks autumn’s sharper beginning.
Taps thrum into plastic bottles
and orange light falls across
the orange layered brickwork.
Other changes are on their way.
The cobbles on Dondukov
are slotted into place and the shops
are doing their best to seem familiar.
It’s like looking, then, into the future
or on some distant land – this snow,
with its fresh-fallen promise,
sitting pretty there on the mountain.
