Grey mouths open for buses,
Breath hanging like brief remarks
The air smells of wet newsprint,
And the shopfront glass holds nothing yet.
Hunched shoulders push the morning on,
Each face its own closed door.
Shoes slap the pavement’s memory
Of last night’s rain.
Even the streetlamps look glad to be off.
Somewhere ahead, past the shuttered bakery,
She’ll be waiting.
I keep my eyes down —
The trick is not to seem different,
Though the fact hums under my coat.
Then I see her,
Standing in the thin light
Like the day’s one good idea,
Scarf loose, hair unbothered by the wind.
She notices me — the corners of her mouth shift.
The crowd presses its errands forward,
Carrying lunch breaks and train times
And whatever will fill the evening.
I let them pass on into their day,
Into the kind of morning they’ll never know.
