nine

The years thicken the shifting memories of your face, shadows sliding 

long on a winter day and a sodium vapor street light. Cigarette smoke 

effectively obscuring all but a glint. A shadow while your hair flies. 

Burning with the suns demise.

I wonder if I should make you a mix tape and how I would translate the 

insistence of this light, it is early spring and the clouds don't fill 

the sky but somewhere between here and the horizon it is raining. The sun 

light changes with the effort of passing through.

All these books, the spines and their permutations of promises. But the 

syntax doesn't stick. I pull open the drawer with the other mixes I never 

gave you. Still nothing. Pushing it closed I slide back into the couch 

and wait

.