Rockport evening

The day was almost too cool. He stood behind the post, his arms searching for position as the fog reappeared, circling in on tilted wings that disappeared down. No one thought they understood them the French visitors clustered against the close air, the whirling fan, in the restaurant with bride's breath in a pink tub, the tall flares leaning between the sloping rocks, casting shadows through glass windows, the deep water sounding below. Memory turns into the tangled vines, slips uncertain behind the graying, clapboard shops, dark-eyed blossoms, dry with slender webs. The lines of a small pumpkin line the doorway, orange.