If

The shop bell rings.
He enters - the clerk flirts against
the periphery of his interest and giggles.
Whe he leaves, she forgets him
but feels more alive and so does he.
Weeks later, the blue sky
reminds her of his eyes
and she smiles.

The man at the party touches her leg
apologizes somewhat unprofusely
hands her his card and says
call me
She laughs and says sure
as he turns away, she crumples
his card into a tiny ball
and throws it under the table.
Her eyes bore a hole in his back
and he knows that she won't.

The woman he works for
suddenly appreciates his worth.
She knows now that he is strong
but has no idea what it took to cope.
He still has the fortitude and enough
affection to forgive. At times
he flusters her with his forward nature.

Someone she once knew
reads a poem thrown through space
like a message sucked through a
clear vacuum tube. He rubs his
eyes and pushes away a memory.
Forgets how hard his cosmic
dust hit the windshield, shattering
her into a million pieces.

The woman he lives with sees the
passion in his eyes and turns away
before it grips her. The man she lives
with ignores the fatigue in her eyes
and continues working. Somewhere,
children want to grow as tall as trees.

The woman on the train shifts
uncomfortably as he stares at her
stockings. The man who sells coffee
wonders why she inspects the shape
of his eyebrows. It is all about the
missing bits. The things that remind us
of one another. We turn, in different
spheres, and wonder;
If.


n.e.