A Gaze at My Feet
While you were looking at my feet, the words in the phone call drifted slowly away. Because you were there in that spot, I stood a little longer.
While you were looking at my feet, the words in the phone call drifted slowly away. Because you were there in that spot, I stood a little longer.
Mid-call I happened to look up, and outside the bus window the streetlights were passing one by one.
Even while the streetlights passed outside the window, it's that gap when you lowered your head for a moment between them that stays with me more.
Where you stood, the fallen leaves are still rustling. That sound alone seems to hold the temperature of that day still.
That rustling went on even in the moment I turned away. The steps that passed it by filled the evening.
When a sudden wind ruffles the surface, I remember how my gaze, resting at my toes, would slide away along the ripples. There was a time toward evening when I stood on a bridge and looked out at the horizon. The water never stopped; it was flowing somewhere. I stood there and watched what it carried away.
Even when the surface trembled, your toes held their place. I too suddenly remember a night I stood on a bridge looking at the water. I kept the memory of something passing beneath for a long time.