Still a Weed

there she was, reading a Murakami,
the light arranging itself carefully around her young
shoulders, iced tea sweating, waiting for no one,
expecting no one, no phone, no ring,
just a fragment of consciousness filling the now,

I let the years run through my hands like grain,
knowing I had seen too much, seen nothing,
and somehow they were both the same,
you see, a weed that survives the storm
is still a weed, maybe there were warnings, little wind chimes
that repeated requiems in every breeze, but I wasn’t listening,
not until I had heard too much, or heard nothing, and
both began to sound the same, all this time,
as if we have been walking too far, too much,
always reaching a fork, always taking different paths,
still walking together, walking apart,

I can see her, the draft from the air conditioner
pulling her hair, shifting slightly as she turns a page,
she reads slowly, I say to myself, trying to forget,
a book that survives that pace is not the same book,
as though I remember everything, remember
nothing and somehow here, alone, reading together,
reading apart, both feel exactly the same.