A hand lifts,
adjusts the loose strand
that falls too easily across a cheek.
The shop window bends the light,
splitting her image into quiet fragments.
Each one holds a question:
confidence, or the briefest tremor of doubt?
I pause in the street,
watching her steady herself
against the invisible mirror of the world.
In that ordinary motion,
something unguarded slips through,
and I carry it away,
a small weight of memory and longing,
folded between sunlight and glass.