I remember with fondness the last worry worth the strain.
It was between the advertisements bookending the
bus stop bench, and I watched a woman no older than I
cross the street without looking both ways.

I panicked despite there being no speed toward her, and
as rapid as no cars were traveling my heart was ecstatic.
At her carelessness. Peered behind turtle-shell bifocals,
and they weren't rimmed thickly; I hate those. They were
wired, and she tugged my heartstrings. With her joy in pacing.

She met my eyes with her glasses and peered strangely toward me,
a stranger watching her with a knitted brow as thick as the scarf
she wore. She paused on the curb a foot about to lift her up, I
think I scared her. Her lips tugged as her hands stuffed themselves
into her tiny pockets. What are pockets used for on women's pants?
Surely not to look nervous and pull away from the world as mine are.

I almost begged the question to ask for her name, or to be a gentleman
and help her cross the stone-few-inch-threshold that seemed to have
stranded her as wide river from her destination; then I realized if she
could cross the raging streets without the help of even reassurance
then I was nothing but another obstacle.

She smiled.
I stared.
And off she went, and I watched her still.
I thought, "If she turns around to look at me, I'll wave her down.
I'll ask her name. I'll pour myself out,
even foolishly."
Her grey knitted cap, of which I am sure hid a knot worth untying,
turned and I saw her profile as her peripheral scoped the last remnants of her
slowly-forgetting-me-memory.
I lifted my hand toward her, and flicked my wrist.
She stopped.
And so did my heart.