You are walking down the street in an unknown city,
it has no name, so you name is Grey because it was and so it is.
A bus pulls up beside you and stops a few paces ahead,
you didn’t realize you were standing at a bus stop until now.

Out steps a man, a should-have-been lover from your youth,
grown up and smiling and walking towards you. He holds
in one hand a suitcase, and in the other hand, a different suitcase.
He stops in front of you and a cold wind finds your neck.

We should have been lovers, he says to you. What happened,
you ask. Life happened he says, as it is apt to do.
He hands you the first suitcase, inside is a folded love note
written in your hand. You feel a little sick to your stomach.

I don’t want this, you say, it is over, it is already dead.
He hands you the second suitcase, inside is a neatly folded
three-piece suit, several pairs of socks, and an apple,
in case you get hungry on the way, he says.

You don’t want to stay here, do you? He gestures to the city
without color that you both have found yourselves in.
You don’t want to stay here, but you are afraid of what
is over the distant hills. Where should we go? You ask him.

He looks east: a hundred birds rise together from the fat green trees.
He looks west: the sun dips into the ocean, spilling itself everywhere.
He looks north: heaven domes overhead, constellations whirling.
He looks south: black soil blossoming blades of grass, pushing up.

You can go anywhere you like, he says, one might go so far as to
call the world your oyster. Me, you say, are you not coming?
I am not, he closes the first suitcase, your note held inside like
a crumpled moth, but I have something to remember you by.

Just then, a bus pulls up alongside you, and the doors open.
Don’t forget to write, he says, and the apple, in case you get hungry.
You set the suitcase in the empty seat beside you as the bus pulls away,
and the motion of the earth spins you onward, as it was and so it is.