waits on the sidewalk outside
my window. The flower in her hair
is wet. She stands very still
her eyes focused upward on some
object I cannot see. She does not
move, but she smiles . . . slightly.
Perhaps she plays the cello
and she is humming Bartok silently
making the bow ripple with her tongue
against her teeth. Or, maybe, she waits
for a bus to take her to her lover.
Or she has read a letter from Paris
or Istanbul and she smells coffee
and chestnuts steam roasted and she
hears in the cobbled streets the cries
of vendors under the aged curves
of bridges. Perhaps she is just a girl
standing in the rain by a stone bench
in the early morning while the
street shines. It is nothing--you argue.
Then why do I weep, and why are there
splinters in my palms, and why do I
stand here, long, long, after she is
gone?
