I don’t know how you
made him not stay,
simple as
handing a fare,
in the open window,
so the cab would go away.
I wonder how
with your smile
making its way like a
moving shadow from
the mix of cloudy wisps
and high summer sun,
as it so quickly forms
and disappears
across your lips. If it
floats inside him,
as though
in a print,
started, when
you slipped too,
past the aperture,
riding the light.
If it had been me,
unable to let alone the
image, not trying to
grasp what it meant,
or remember where
I’d been,
beyond your thoughts,
beyond who
came next,
with useful
hope departed,
holding on anyway,
giving a relentless
purpose to my heart.