IN PASSING
(for J, wherever she may be)


The east-west track spreads its wings before me, too heavy to fly,
as he rocks heel to toe, his hands tucked deep into his sleeves.

Stale urine confronts me, even under the weight
of the January chill I shrug from my neck.

“You know,” his voice straddles me
from behind his coffee-black beard,

“dust mites and spiders freeze like precipitation
in the crowns of cumulo nimbus clouds and are carried over oceans . . .”

And as I follow his gaze up into the nearly all blue sky
his voice, large and heavy, fades beneath the horn of slowing train

like chalk flowers in a warm summer rain or
my memory of you on days less perfect for travel.

I reach absently for the browned hourglass core
of the last apple we shared, traded bite for bite from your hand,

then step up, pause half-way in the door of empty train.
With a quick glance over my shoulder, I realize now I will be traveling alone.

As we pull apart, I wonder if he will remember me
when the rain reaches to him, embraces his skin,

or when this east-west reaches out to any place other than here
then reaches back again, just as I have tried so many times for you.

My breath, touching the cool window beside me, gathers him up
in a single cloud, then fades, into the nakedness of everything.