I stumbled against you at the bazaar in Alexandria one day,
   a stroke of accidental closeness as we brushed hands,
and my heart shivered like the old man on the corner of Divisadero street.

And then you vanished from my mind as a dead leaf from branch,
   till I saw you again in a tavern by the docks,
quill in hand and the world on your back.

We share that same dusty look, that obvious stride
   that wanderers from everywhere can so easily surmise
to belong to one in kind.

The day after you were at the well by the caravanserai,
   and I recognized your goatskin shoes as those
of a mariner from the North, the land of the Majus, my kin.