it was like walking outside the day after a windstorm.
The chill remained, but no remnant,
no sign showed where you wandered.
What you left behind offered the only reminder:
scattered leaves, road signs askew,
an overturned chair.
When you were here your presence was a feeling,
a touch against the skin, a stroke of hair, a breeze
intangible to grasp, insubstantial as an unasked question.  
Not wishing to go off-kilter
I altered my balance, strode forward against
the current, brushed the hair
away from my eyes.  And now –  
the emptiness is non-empty.
The absence recalls
what was once there.
The space between cause and effect
was only a pause.

I asked a woman for directions;
she said, go down Forbes Avenue
and turn left where the 7-Eleven
used to be.