It was winter
I sat there waiting for you
when I knew I shouldn’t be

in the passenger seat of that
blue and silver volkswagen

the grey of the dashboard
stretching out
into the pale dusk of the road
the scene was monochrome

not flat, not nondescript
simple
the clouds just before snow
the grass just before ice
the time for color to drain away
and come back fuller in spring
it seemed just right

I knew it shouldn’t

I wake and remark
the cold in my bundled clothes
the cheerlessness of winter
every shade of grey
bleeding into one another

looking beyond that dashboard
from inside your empty car

I wonder why it seems so beautiful

I think that it was
my winter clothes
and your car
and the pre-snow

a scene
that held your memory
a scene that could still hope for who you’d be

a scene that you weren’t in
a scene that was all me
gloved and hatted in
the fabrics of Corinthians 13

believing,
waiting

I wonder why it seems so beautiful

I think that it was me