The train pulls into the station as if pausing to
Reflect on the dust kicked up by passing feet,
But there’s no time for that—she hurries
Toward the exit, where light spills like milk
Across the worn pavement, etching faces in shadow.

A child is crying for a balloon that drifts skyward,
Though he doesn’t know the shape of its leaving
Will hover above him for years. Yet balloons
Always seem to know the way—upward,
Or sometimes sideways, like the wind forgot
Where it wanted to take them. And we forget
These moments too, like a door closing softly
In a house you no longer live in.

Outside, it begins to drizzle, as though the sky
Is undecided between release and restraint.
Someone’s umbrella turns inside out with a snap,
An awkward flight. We are all trying,
A little bent in our effort, like the umbrella,
Shaped by the weather but not defeated.

And still, the afternoon stretches, elastic,
Widening until it becomes something else entirely—
An evening, a song half-remembered from years ago
About a road that didn’t end where you thought it would,
Like so many roads. But you drive it anyway
Because the horizon looks softer than your own thoughts.

At dinner, the salt falls from your hand
In small, deliberate clumps,
And the water glass is full, even though
You’ve been sipping at it for hours.