“Should Have Stayed at the Bus Station” – R.L.

You know that lingering smile, before the payphone clicks through, when the moonlight falls like loose change on the bitter blue tiles and the person next to you begins to move like someone you almost remember. Back when dreams made sense. Back when colors ran across the night sky but made no sense at all

Plate glass reflects the quick lights but not the ambrosia air, the moment you turned and nothing happened. The time you fled, but with different wings, the time you thought you were returning but had merely left your jacket in the seat

There is a future beneath layers of earth. Those massive wheels roar non-stop from our home to our hometown. The confusion over which road to take is not a factor. The darkness grows where the shadow falls. Massive red cedars hold watch over a past we’ve just begun to know, a new destination, an old question

and just as we roll into the station, there is the distinct feeling that we never left