Concrete Steps

The downtown trees shelter these sidewalks.

Their canopies, oxidizing in these late autumn evenings,

drop flakes of rust from stolid limbs,

staining the pallid concrete a muted red.

The last dredges of oblique afternoon rays

pool at the edge of the horizon

before soaking into the curvature of the earth;

as the evening dissipates, the dull ocher leaves

darken to a gunmetal grey.

When the sun sits atop a sharp angle,

rays collecting brilliantly in white coats and chrome car parts,

these streets belong to the feet that cover them.

As transient beams grow slanted and evanesce, however,

your name appears scrawled on every street corner;

like some obscure ink only visible under moonlight,

your signature drips luminescently from street signs

as they loiter in the shadows.

At night, these streets are yours.

Despite your distance,

you haunt these downtown shops and alleys,

nostalgia becoming an almost physical presence

that collects in my throat as I try to swallow.

Something in the air tonight is causing

the space behind my ribs

to ache.

Or, more likely, something that isn't in the air --

something no longer here.