I have seen her here before

Always on that stool by the window

Perched and fine as lace

Wearing summer dresses that leave

her shoulders bare as silk

Hair wild and dark as midnight

Falling around her face like surreptitious whispers

Looking out on the street

Oblivious to the small river of strangers

Floating either upstream or down

Later, when I think of her again

It is always just as she’s holding her cup in midair,

That selfless, tiny balancing act

Forgetting to sip because she’s thinking

How someone loves her the way

Fire swallows a city no one ever goes back to,

The way delicate animals run away from sudden sounds,

The way some quiet, unknown girl in a coffeeshop

Goes lost in a dream with a cup in her hand

A private smile on her face

For that nameless other one out there somewhere

Aching for the moment her shadow comes home