Tilting

A brief brush with the memory of what was when it clashes into the reality of what is.

 

Tilting Planets

 

I was in line at the grocery

store check-out, waiting

for my turn, when she walked by.

 

I think it was her perfume.

Or maybe the soft, swooping

style of her hair that first drew

my attention. 

 

I did not see her face then,

but I had memorized its lines

and contours once

before when we had been

the very best of friends.  When the

world had seemed so large and

our dreams were enough to

keep it suspended among the planets.

 

I almost left the

stand to go in search of her,

to go running up and down

the aisles calling her name in

hopes we could spend

another day together, another

afternoon in the summer heat.

 

Instead I closed my eyes,

counted back from ten,

paid for my groceries, and walked

into the rain,

my head tilted up at the storm.