End of the Alley, Night
Today, too, I looked back that way. The streetlight spreads across the ground like a wet stain, and it takes a beat to know there is no one at the end of it. The alley that person used to walk down toward me has become the road I walk out along. Beneath the cherry tree that has dropped its leaves, I stop and slowly turn my back.
At a corner passing the evening bus window, the shadow of an old utility pole stretched long across the asphalt. No one stood at the end of that shadow, and I suddenly gripped the strap tighter.
The shadow that lingered after the streetlight at the end of the alley went out finds its place again when evening comes. Last evening, from my window, I watched an empty swing sway slowly in the lamplight.