Asking For Directions

Asking for Directions


We could have been mistaken
for a married couple
riding on the train from Manhattan
to Chicago that last time
we were together.
I remember looking out the window
and praising the beauty
of the ordinary: the in-between places,
the world with its back turned to us,
the small neglected stations
of our history.
I slept across your chest and stomach
without asking permission
because they were the last hours.
There was a smell to the sheepskin
lining of your new Chinese vest
that I didn't recognize. I felt
it deliberately. I woke early
and asked you to come with me for coffee.
You said, sleep more,
and I said we only had one hour
and you came.
We didn't say much after that.
In the station,
you took your things
and handed me the vest,
then left as we had planned.
So you would have ten minutes
to meet your family and leave.
I stood by the seat dazed
by exhaustion
and the absoluteness of the end,
so still I was aware of myself breathing.
I put on the vest and my coat,
got my bag and, turning, saw you
through the dirty window
standing outside looking up at me.
We looked at each other without any
expression at all.
Invisible, unnoticed, still.
That moment is what I will tell of
as proof that you loved me permanently.
After that I was a woman alone
carrying her bag, asking a worker
which direction to walk to find a taxi.

Linda Gregg

Posted over on Poets.Org