Rain returns in the fretting hours, beating against panes of dream. Early traffic splashes down from Broseley, birds stay hunched in roosts. When the weather breaks, they sally out in the first damp glimmer. At dawn, behind horizon clouds, what is not fire burns what is not day. Sunlight of the new normal is a cool, rinsed thing that draws something not-normal from the water. A mist rises from ponds and brooks. It flows uphill, pale and smoky,.