And Then You Were Gone

A final meeting.

I waited, seated behind the arched letters of the cafe window,
riveted by others who moved urgently, soundlessly, beyond
the thick glass, scurrying along glistening sidewalks,
winding between glaring headlamps in the slick night

to lovers, to friends, to family, to home.
I remember no words, only the sting of hot coffee,
a hurried gulp to stanch the welling pain and to quiet
the certain quiver of my voice if left to speak.

Yet once into the dampness, standing together for a last time
in the crystalline night, the balance is seared into hard memory
as I watched you lift a speck from my collar,
grooming me, as before, and then a smile, wistful,

and you rose on tiptoes to brush a wisp of hair from
my brow and silently, hood now raised in the misting
dark, you found the sharp corner of the red brick
building and vanished.